Europe to launch chamber of commerce in Riyadh

The first European Chamber of Commerce in the Gulf region will open next week in Riyadh, the EU’s special representative for the Gulf region has said.

Luigi Di Maio said the new body would bring Saudi and European companies together to enhance trade and cooperation.

“We’ve worked very hard with the Ministry of Investment, your Ministry of Trade. The EU delegation in Riyadh did a great job. And now we are going to inaugurate this chamber,” Di Maio said.

“That is in order to bring closer our companies, Saudi companies and European companies, to take on both sides the new opportunities of the Vision 2030 program … of our new European Green Deal, Next Generation EU, and others.”

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 reform program had transformed the global business community’s view of the Kingdom, Di Maio said. “The ambitions, especially economic ambitions, of Saudi Arabia are totally changing perceptions of the Kingdom around the world,” he said. “There is a business community that is more and more interested in these ambitions, in this vision, and in a new generation of dreamers in this country.”

There was a growing recognition of the Kingdom’s diplomatic and economic influence, Di Maio said. “Saudi Arabia is becoming more and more the point of reference because now it is implementing its vision for the region that is not just an economic ambition, but is a new policy and new initiatives in order to de-escalate, to make the region in peace and wind down on tensions like the tension that we are experiencing now.

“The partnership and the strategic partnership between the EU and GCC countries, in particular with countries like Saudi Arabia, is vital.”