The Kingdom’s investments play a major role in Lebanon’s economy

The Minister of Economy and Trade, Amin Salam, met during his visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, heading the Lebanese delegation to the meetings of the Economic and Social Council at the ministerial level of the Council of the League of Arab States, with his counterpart, the Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning, Faisal bin Fadel Al-Ibrahim.

The meeting was an occasion to discuss strengthening joint economic, trade and investment relations between the two countries during the next stage. Salam stressed in the meeting the privacy of the economic relations between the Kingdom and Lebanon, which go back to more than 7 decades and include the commercial, industrial, banking and tourism sectors.

Salam pointed out that Saudi investments have always played a major role in the Lebanese economy, and during the last two decades before the recent crisis, they constituted nearly 20% of the total foreign investments, and thus the Kingdom was the first direct investor in Lebanon, the first depositor and the largest importer, and he added: “Today we have a great opportunity to revive this Lebanese-Saudi relationship, which has always been characterized by depth and strength, based on positive regional developments and their repercussions on institutional and economic relations in particular, which facilitates matters on both sides.”

The meeting dealt with two main issues:

The first: Ways to restore and develop commercial activities between the Kingdom and Lebanon, as an affirmation of the long-standing relations between the two countries.

The second: how to find the attractive factors and positive ingredients that help the return of Saudi investments to Lebanon.

And while the Minister of Economy stressed the need for Lebanon to expedite the implementation of economic reforms and follow a new economic policy based on stability and successful joint projects, which enhances investor confidence and encourages them to take initiative, he considered that the main door to attracting investors and tourists, revitalizing the Lebanese economy and achieving a promising summer season is political and security stability, which we hope. To reach Lebanon soon.

Salam also presented figures on the volume of trade exchange between the Kingdom and Lebanon, which exceeded 800 million dollars in the past decade, of which 434 million dollars are Lebanese imports to Saudi Arabia and 359 million dollars are Lebanese exports to the Saudi market.

Salam stressed that these numbers could double as soon as the markets are reopened and the economic and trade relations return to their previous state, provided that the situation in Lebanon is stable, as in Syria, because of its impact on trade exchange between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, as it is the only land crossing for Lebanon.

The meeting, which was characterized by positivity, concluded with the agreement of the two parties to start gradually opening channels of cooperation and searching for joint promising and value-added opportunities in the field of economic and trade exchange and encouraging the investment environment between the two countries.