First online "Saudi-Japan Vision 2030 Business Forum"

December 2020

At the beginning of the forum, with the understanding that Saudi Arabia's reform centering on departure from dependence on oil and industrial diversification has grown more important under the coronavirus crisis, Japanese Economic Minister KAJIYAMA Hiroshi stated that Japan will advocate the reform from both sides of the public and private sectors, and that the stance is unwavering. MISA Minister Khalid Al-Falih emphasized anew that Japan has been an important partner for his country over a long period of time, and stated that fields of tourism, entertainment and startups will be drivers of economic growth and innovation after the corona crisis is over.

In the first presentation, the Economic Cities and Special Zones Authority (ECZA) introduced the initiative of drawing international companies to establish regional headquarters in the country through improving Special Economic Zones and providing incentives such as preferential tax treatment. The Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) gave an explanation on the attractiveness of the city as a location for regional headquarters and the investment environment.

In the first panel session, "tourism" was chosen as the theme. The Saudi Ministry of Tourism explained that tourism is one pillar of "Vision 2030," which has three objectives in order to aim to become one of the top five tourist destinations in the world: 1) drawing 100 million tourists to the country, 2) making tourism further contribute to GDP, and 3) creating one million jobs through tourism. He also announced the policy to promote the developments of hotels and airports. Saudi Arabia's Tourism Development Fund presented that it can support tourism projects through facilitating financial cooperation between banks and private companies in order to promote investment. In addition, from the Japanese side, the startup ALE presented on the fact that it can contribute to the promotion of tourism in Saudi Arabia with its technology that generates artificial meteors.

In the second panel session under the theme "Innovation Startups," a representative of a leading startup research company active in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), MAGNiTT, presented that investment into Saudi Arabia through venture capital (VC) has been rapidly growing over the last five years, primarily in fields such as e-commerce, fintech and logistics. A VC firm, STV, and an investment firm, Riyad Capital, stated that encouraging overseas tech companies, including from Japan, to enter the country and having them grow in Saudi Arabia's ecosystems is important because the needs for the digital field are being accelerated by the crisis. From the Japanese side, presentations were delivered by representatives of Jafco Group, a well-established VC firm; Abdul Latif Jameel General Trading Co., Ltd., a Japanese corporation of ALJ, a major Saudi group that invests in the healthcare field in cooperation with Jafco Group; and Abies Ventures, a deeptech fund. They expressed their great expectations for the expanded business potential of Japanese startups in the MENA region through collaboration with Saudi companies, and that the technologies of Japanese companies can be leveraged in fields including urban development and environment, while challenges still remain, such as in obtaining licenses.

At the end of the forum, 14 newly signed MOUs in various fields which that symbolize the deepening of cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Japan were introduced online as well.