Tomorrow… Ministry of Investment will participate in Saudi-‎French Investment Forum

Saudi Minister of Investment, Engineer Khaled Al-Falih, will participate in the Saudi-French Investment Forum, which will be held tomorrow in the French capital, Paris. The delegation will also participate in a number of other activities that focus on investment.

The forum aims to enable Saudi and French government officials, and private sector companies, to discuss major investment opportunities in various sectors, while highlighting the progress made by each country in its economic development plans.

The forum opens with a speech by Olivier Pechet, Minister of Foreign Trade, Attraction and the French Abroad, and Minister of Investment, Engineer Khaled Al-Falih.

The forum will be held in conjunction with an official reception for delegates of 179 member countries of the Bureau International des Expositions, the organizing body for international Expo exhibitions, tomorrow in Paris, while on the eve of the Bureau’s 172nd General Assembly meeting, on Tuesday, June 20, a ceremony will be held to introduce Riyadh’s bid to host the exhibition. Expo 2030 under the slogan “Together we look forward to the future”, and to show Riyadh’s readiness to host this important event, and the investment opportunities and major projects that confirm the Kingdom’s readiness to host international exhibitions and events such as Expo 2030.

The forum includes three main discussion panels, the first of which reviews the opportunities and potentials available for cooperation between the Kingdom and France in the tourism and culture sectors. The CEO of the Saudi Tourism Authority, Fahd Hamid Al-Din, and the CEO of the Diriyah Gate Development Authority, Jerry Inzerillo, and the President of the Saudi Tourism Authority, will speak in this session. The Board of Directors and CEO of the “Charge” company, Michel Freibourg, the CEO of Al-Musafir, one of the companies of the Seera Holding Group, Fahd Al-Obailan, and the chief development officer of the “Accor” company, Agnes Roquefort.

The second panel discussion will focus on how to strengthen relations between the technological system in the Kingdom and its French counterpart. In this session, Patrick Sowell, Director of the Investment Fund at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones Founder, Faisal Al-Khamisi, CEO of Blossom, Eamonn Chaccour, and CEO of Pascal, Georges-Olivier Raymond, will speak.

While the third episode discusses ways to transition to clean energy, with the participation of a group of speakers, including the Director of the Clean Hydrogen Department at the Ministry of Energy, Sami Al-Saadan, the President of “EDF International” Beatrice Buffon, and the Vice President of the “Air Liquid” Company for Industries and Business. Markets and the energy transition, Olivier Randet

The forum will conclude with bilateral meetings, during which “Invest in Saudi Arabia” – the investment promotion platform in the Kingdom – will review the opportunities available to French investors.

A group of government and private sector companies in the Kingdom is scheduled to participate in the Viva Tech conference in France. To explore opportunities to enhance growth in the technology sector, and to highlight what the emerging Saudi technology companies have achieved, members of the Kingdom’s delegation, which also includes “KAUST” University, “Monshaat” and others, will visit Paris-Sacley University on June 15, followed by a visit to the station “F”, the largest university campus for entrepreneurship in the world, where the delegation will discuss the opportunities available to entrepreneurs in the Kingdom and France.

It is noteworthy that the Saudi-French Investment Forum is the latest event in a series of high-level French-Saudi events launched last year, which aim to strengthen the bilateral partnership, which included the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to the Kingdom, as well as the visit of the Minister of Foreign Trade and Polarization. And the French abroad, Olivier Pechet, in addition to the visit of His Excellency the Minister of Investment, Engineer Khaled Al-Falih, to France.