Ashraf AboArafe
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is strengthening its strategic partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to support sustainable and inclusive industrial development, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2024-2025, as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to reduce the development gap between countries and enhance industrial competitiveness, in addition to stimulating investment and adopting advanced technologies in industrial fields.
These efforts coincide with the Kingdom’s preparations to host the Multilateral Industrial Policy Forum, in cooperation with UNIDO, on October 23, 2024. The forum, which is being held for the first time in Saudi Arabia, constitutes a leading international platform for exchanging visions and experiences, supporting the development of the industrial sector in the Kingdom, and contributing to facing economic challenges and achieving sustainable development, in accordance with Vision 2030.
Despite the Kingdom’s launch of many national strategies and initiatives aimed at strengthening the industrial sector and the economy in general, this sector still faces many operational challenges; The most prominent of these are diversifying the industry and improving its local practices, increasing integration with global value chains, developing human capital and localization, achieving sustainable growth for the sector, developing infrastructure, and adopting modern technology.
From this standpoint, the role of UNIDO comes as a supportive international institution, seeking to provide technical and knowledge support to the Kingdom through consultations, policies and joint initiatives, to overcome the challenges facing the development of industry in the Kingdom, as eight areas of work have been identified for future cooperation with UNIDO, the most important of which are developing policies and aligning them with international standards, enhancing institutional capacities to make timely political decisions, facilitating and attracting foreign investment by promoting technology, innovation and partnerships, transferring advanced technology, leading sustainable industrial practices through international cooperation, and developing human resources and the workforce through the exchange of international skills; which contributes to enhancing competitiveness and innovation in the Saudi economy.
The Kingdom is keen to achieve sustainable industrial development in line with Vision 2030, by implementing a set of policies and initiatives that focus on diversifying the national economy and moving away from dependence on oil. Therefore, cooperation with UNIDO came to enhance digital transformation in industry, develop human capital, and support integration with international markets, in order to achieve a qualitative leap in the level of national industries, and raise the attractiveness of the sector for local and international investments.
The Kingdom is preparing to host the Multilateral Industrial Policy Forum, which is an attractive climate for exchanging ideas and experiences with industry leaders and experts around the world; with the aim of formulating effective and innovative industrial policies that keep pace with global developments in the sector. The forum seeks to enhance ways of international cooperation to support sustainable industrial development, and drive industrial growth according to foundations that take into account local and international challenges, as the forum is expected to achieve fruitful results that will support the Kingdom’s efforts to develop a strong and advanced industrial sector, contributing to diversifying the economy and achieving comprehensive and sustainable development.
