00:00Let's talk about some of these commitments we've heard from the president, from the crown prince.
00:04Yesterday I was in the Oval Office.
00:06The $600 billion quickly became $1 trillion just in a matter of 60 seconds.
00:10And when you look through some of the deals that they're talking about, you hear the words commitments, MOUs.
00:16At what point do you think these deals will actually be inked, more solidified?
00:22Well, this is actually a relationship that is quite reciprocal.
00:26Both countries benefit from co-investing with each other.
00:32There is no doubt that the American economy is the largest.
00:36The capital markets here are the deepest.
00:39I think something like 78% of the market cap of global capital markets is here in the U.S.
00:46And it's natural for an investment powerhouse like Saudi Arabia to be investing in the U.S.
00:51Also, we're modernizing, diversifying, and turbocharging our economy away, or in addition to, actually, our oil sector,
01:05which is going to continue to thrive, into new sectors where the U.S. happens to be the global leader,
01:11especially in tech, and AI, and healthcare, and biotechnology.
01:17So, I think it is natural.
01:20The capital in Saudi Arabia has been and continues to be abundant from our indigenous sources, government, PIF,
01:29companies like Aramco, which are growing their business, and they're generating from their revenue a lot of free cash flow
01:38that they need to deploy to grow and diversify their businesses.
01:43So, it's natural for us to be looking at the U.S. for a majority of our future and current investment.
01:50And it's also equally compelling for U.S. investors to look at Saudi Arabia.
01:56We are one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing economies in the G20.
02:03And we have many, many competitive strengths that actually make investing by American companies
02:11quite profitable and reasonably, reasonably low risk, given the regulatory ecosystem in Saudi Arabia,
02:22the stability of the currency, which is pegged, the high credit rating, you name it.
02:28Saudi Arabia ticks all the boxes and then some.
02:33So, the numbers that have been mentioned are natural, I think,
02:37given the scale of these two economies we're talking about.
02:40And they are mutually beneficial, hugely mutually beneficial.
02:46When we first met, you were the Saudi energy minister.
02:50I used to follow you all over the world to ask you about the oil price.
02:53Where oil prices are trading right now, could Saudi continue to have that high level of investment with prices in the 60s?
03:01Well, first of all, anybody who's been monitoring oil and oil markets like yourself
03:07would know that the market is highly cyclical.
03:11And after every downturn, there is a period of tightness because of demand being stimulated by extended long periods of low oil prices
03:23and also by throttling the investment by some countries and companies.
03:30So, I expect in the mid to long term, oil prices will be healthy, oil markets will continue to grow
03:36and there will be plenty of investment.
03:39The other angle, I would say, is that investments in the kingdom are no longer correlated 100% with government spend,
03:49which is a function of short-term revenues from oil.
03:56That economy of Saudi Arabia has been superseded by Vision 2030.
04:04And we have to a large degree, not fully, but we are in our way of decoupling the economy of Saudi Arabia
04:10from its strong correlation and interlock with oil prices.
04:18The private sector is the primary investor in Saudi Arabia, both domestic and international.
04:26As I said today in my opening remarks, FDI flows have quadrupled since Vision 2030 was launched in 2016, quadrupled.
04:37And as a result, our 80-year stock of FDI has doubled in the last 10 years.
04:44So, in the last 10 years, we've generated more FDI stock than we had the previous 80 years.
04:5290% of our FDI flows recently are not related to oil.
04:57It's in the sectors that are going to be driving the economy of Saudi Arabia tomorrow.
05:04Tourism is one example.
05:07Obviously, technology, cloud and AI, healthcare and biotech, education from the world's best universities
05:17are all coming to the kingdom and voting with their dollars and their money.
05:25So, yes, oil markets will oscillate and prices will go up and down.
05:31But we don't invest on the basis of what oil prices are going to be next quarter or next year or the year after.
05:38The kingdom today is a magnet for global investment.
05:41And even Saudi investment is being reinvested at a very high place.
05:45And the kingdom, I would just end by saying, the kingdom has invested, all sectors of our economy,
05:52has invested significantly, trillions of dollars abroad over the last 80, 90 years.
05:58And many investors are saying, we find the kingdom, Saudi investors, the best place to invest.
06:04And they're repatriating some of that, some of those stocks back to Saudi.
06:08A lot of Saudi barrels that are going to Asia, namely China, but the dollars are coming to the United States.
06:14Do you think strategically today Saudi Arabia is closer to the U.S. than Beijing?
06:18Well, we have actually quite a balanced global relationship economically, trade and investment.
06:26China remains to be, predominantly, our largest trade partner.
06:35You know, the trade, bilateral trade between Saudi and China is equivalent to the next four or five G7 countries.
06:45So it's quite significant.
06:47And that's going to only grow because of the complementarity between our two economies.
06:53China remains to be the world factory and the manufacture at a low cost.
06:59And we realize they're also upgrading their technology capabilities.
07:04So they are good.
07:06And I'm happy to say, as a minister of investment, as excited as I am here in the U.S.
07:11about attracting American investment, I'm excited about attracting Chinese investment.
07:16We think, and we see, we've seen a significant uptick in Chinese FDI flows into Saudi.
07:25They are nowhere near where the U.S. has accumulated and continues to lead an investment in Saudi.
07:31But China is investing and they will continue to invest.
07:34And we invest in China too for the reasons you mentioned.
07:37And all of the barrels of hydrocarbons that go to China, we would rather process those in China in our own facility.
07:48So both SABIC and Aramco have been and continue to invest in that world number two market, which is growing at a fast pace.
07:57And then we're seeing more investments in China and with China in areas where they are the global leaders, especially in renewables.
08:05If you think of photovoltaics, wind energy, they're quite a powerful country and economy in those sectors.
08:18And it makes a lot of sense for us to invest with them.
08:20Saudi Arabia continues to be guided by its own interests, especially if they're aligned with countries who are like-minded and strategic partners to us.
08:33And I'm happy to say that we have that relationship both with the U.S. and China.
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