Top Wall Street executives and American business leaders won’t be deterred by a public dispute between the two countries from attending a major investment event starting on Tuesday, where the monarchy will look for partnerships to lessen its dependency on oil.
In response to an OPEC+ agreement this month to reduce oil output targets, which Riyadh defended as promoting market stability, President Joe Biden has threatened “consequences” for U.S.-Saudi relations.
The dispute was the most recent cloud to hang over the annual Future Investment Initiative (FII), which has since suffered from the pandemic in 2020 and a Western boycott over the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, making it very different from the inaugural event that Riyadh dubbed “Davos in the Desert” in 2017.
According to Richard Attias, CEO of the FII Institute, more than 400 American delegates are anticipated to participate this week, making it the most significant foreign country delegation ever, revealed Reuters.
According to the same source, Adel Hamaizia, managing director of Highbridge Advisory and visiting fellow at Harvard University, “for the most part, I do not see U.S. corporations deliberately avoiding Saudi Arabia owing to recent political difficulties.”
Despite progress in new industries as the kingdom opens up, foreign direct investment still falls short of goals.
The stakes for the government in pursuing Vision 2030, which includes a $500 billion project to construct a sizable, high-tech economic zone called NEOM on the Red Sea, eventually intended to house nine million people, have increased due to the deteriorating outlook for the global economy and the volatility of the oil market.