Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom sovereign wealth fund plans to invest up to $266bn in new projects by 2025, reported Saudi Gazette citing its top official.
It has been instrumental in creating more than 400,000 direct and indirect job opportunities since 2017 until the end of the second quarter of 2021, stated PIF Governor Yasir Al Rumayyan, while addressing the Saudi Budget Forum in the capital Riyadh earlier this week.
Saudi Arabia is expected to post its first budget surplus in nearly a decade next year, as it plans to restrict public spending despite a surge in oil prices that helped to refill state coffers hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.
After an expected fiscal deficit of 2.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, Saudi Arabia estimates it will achieve a surplus of SR90 billion or 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2022 – its first surplus since it went into a deficit after oil prices crashed in 2014.
Al Rumayyan said PIF aims to increase the volume of assets under management from SR1.8 trillion currently to SR4 trillion. “The fund continues to achieve its goals for 2025, which are to pump SR1 trillion into new projects, and the volume of assets under management to reach SR4 trillion,” he stated.
