A delegation from the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) visited Taiwan last week to extend the invitation. The delegation briefed Taiwan’s economic officials and company executives on business opportunities in the economic cities, the Economic Daily News (EDN) reported. According to EDN, Saudi Arabia plans to build six economic cities, which are actually industrial zones. SAGIA has invited Taiwan to invest in an oil refinery in Alex Economic City, one of the six. Taiwan’s Economic Ministry is interested in the Saudi invitation because such investment could help boost Taiwan’s unofficial ties with Saudi Arabia and secure oil supplies for Taiwan, which imports all the crude it consumes. The Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co, a subsidiary of the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC) is interested in investing in Saudi Arabia because Kuokuang may drop its plan to build a petrochemical complex in Taiwan due to Taiwan’s restrictions on carbon-dioxide emission, the EDN said.

Other Taiwan companies, like the Taiwan Power Co, are also interested in investing in Saudi Arabia’s economic cities.

Taiwan does not have diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia but still has close trade ties with the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia hopes to build itself into one of the world’s 10 most competitive nations by 2020, and developing economic cities is one of the means to achieve this goal.

In SAGIA’s terms, each economic city will be an “integrated economic hub” providing housing complexes, education, entertainment as well as agriculture, logistics, food processing, mining and industry.

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