Hamad Al-Hammad, the head the Federation of Saudi Chambers’ national contracting committee, announced that the value of development projects in various regions of the Kingdom during the past five years exceeded $5 trillion.
His comments came on the sidelines of the Future Projects Forum 2022, which was inaugurated on Sunday by Prince Faisal bin Bandar, Governor of the Riyadh region.
The two-day event is attended by more than 30 government and private entities, who will present more than 1,000 projects of various sizes and a value exceeding 600 billion riyals.
The forum, which is also featuring a number of Iraqi projects, aims to develop the Saudi contracting sector and provide opportunities for project owners from the public and private sectors.
Al-Hammad called on investors in the contracting field to take advantage of the available opportunities and build strategic partnerships with Saudi companies.
He noted that Saudi Vision 2030 seeks to raise the capabilities of the Saudi contracting sector and create promising investments opportunities.
In this regard, he said that the number of Saudi establishments in the sector has reached more than 177,000, with an annual growth rate of about 3 percent.
The sector’s contribution to the Kingdom’s GDP is 5.5 percent, and 10.7 percent in the non-oil GDP, he underlined.
According to Al-Hammad, the number of projects proposed by the state will reach 540 in 2021, with a value exceeding $120 billion.
He noted that they will cover several sectors, including construction, energy and transportation.
In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Hammad stressed the need to work on creating qualitative partnerships in order to exchange experiences and engage in major projects at the regional and global levels.
“The contracting sector is one of the most important pillars of economic development in the world, for its role in building cities and developing infrastructure,” he said. “This sector has played a key role in the Kingdom’s construction expansion.”
