Healthcare

Healthcare The impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic has served to highlight the importance of the healthcare sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and globally. The healthcare sector has long benefited from a substantial share of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s budget, with over SAR167 billion earmarked for healthcare in the 2020 budget. Of […]

Fintech

Fintech KSA regulators have recently allowed several supervised experimentations in FinTech products and services as part of a number of pilot projects. For example, in February 2018, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (“SAMA”) permitted banks to engage in a pilot programme to test out the use of Ripple’s instant cross-border payment settlement blockchain mechanism; in […]

Energy and Utilities

Energy and Utilities Coverage of the Saudi energy and utilities sectors tends to focus on the forthcoming IPO of Saudi Aramco, but there are a number of other initiatives that are relevant both to regulatory projects and to investment opportunities for foreign and local players. Renewable Energy A key objective of Vision 2030 and the […]

Consumer

Consumer In recent years, there have been initiatives to open the consumer market in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to foreign investment. In 2016, the Ministry of Investment in Saudi Arabia (“MISA”) eased restrictions on foreign shareholding in retail businesses, permitting retail and wholesale businesses to be wholly-owned by foreign entities, and our lawyers have […]

Chemicals

Chemicals The NICDP has identified ‘Chemicals’ as one of five high-growth-potential, export-oriented industries to be part of its Industrial Clusters programme, intended to drive initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030’s goal of diversifying the economy and increasing the manufacturing share of GDP. The inclusion of chemicals is not surprising, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s […]

Banks

Banks The banking sector in Saudi Arabia is regulated by SAMA. In order to carry on banking business (a term that is widely defined by SAMA and includes deposit taking, foreign exchange transactions, and “other banking business”) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an entity must be licensed by SAMA and be either a local […]

Automotive

Automotive Industry in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is one of the largest automotive markets in the Middle East, accounting for approximately 40% of total vehicle sales in the region. The automotive market in Saudi Arabia is forecast to increase further in size due to a number of factors, including permission for women to drive as […]