India, Saudi Arabia Invest Forum meets in New Delhi, over 500 companies participate

The event was held on the sidelines of the state visit of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to India, to participate in the Leaders’ Summit of the bilateral Strategic Partnership Council, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

This is the first such formal investment symposium between India and Saudi Arabia and it comes as a follow-up to the announcement made, previously, by the Saudi Crown Prince to invest approximately $100 Billion in diverse sectors of the Indian economy.

The Ministerial Session of the India-Saudi Investment Forum 2023 was co-chaired by the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal and the Minister of Investment, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,Khalid A. Al Falih.

"Jointly addressing the business gathering, the two Ministers discussed, inter-alia, ways and means of expanding bilateral collaboration in various domains including start-ups, digital infrastructure development, increasing collaboration between the business and investor ecosystems of the two countries including through closer cooperation between the Investment promotion agencies of the two countries and through setting up of investment promotion offices, encouragement of Saudi Sovereign Wealth Funds to consider direct investments into India in addition to the current inflow of investments through funds, and possibility of joint projects," read a statement issued by the Indian government.

Some of the other key outcomes during the Ministerial discussion included concurrence on fast-tracked realisation of partnership opportunities identified under the Committee on Economy and Investments of the Strategic Partnership Council.

The Ministers also outlined potential investment collaborations in the domains of food processing, logistics and infrastructure, healthcare, energy particularly renewable energy, skill development, space, ICT, start-ups particularly in the digital domain.

In welcome remarks at The Forum, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Rajesh Kumar Singh highlighted the importance of bilateral relationships between the two countries and emphasised upon mutual growth by furthering economic and cultural relations between the two countries.

Earlier on Monday (September 11, 2023), more than 45 Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were concluded between the two sides, in G2B and B2B formats.

These MoUs are expected to further deepen the economic engagement between the two sides and are also likely to accelerate investment flows between the two sides.