The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is planning to multiply the number of investment deals with Saudi Arabia by several times in 2019 and has led its first Russian business mission of the year to the Kingdom for high-level meetings to discuss new projects.
The mission included over 20 majority shareholders and senior managers of leading Russian companies, including petrochemicals holding SIBUR, submersible pump manufacturer Novomet, and fertilizer producer Phosagro.
The delegation discussed projects in the oil refining, petrochemical, gas chemical and oilfield services sectors, including large-scale petrochemical projects in Russia, a rubber production project in Saudi Arabia, and joint oil and gas equipment manufacturing projects in Saudi Arabia, which could support a localisation of production.
In 2017, during King Salman’s official visit to Moscow, RDIF, Saudi Aramco and PIF established a $1 billion joint platform for investments in the energy sector and a $1 billion platform for investments in technology.
“RDIF is delighted that the Russia-Saudi partnership takes no break as we enter the new year with ambitious plans for new investment deals. We believe this partnership is a strategic alliance that will be extremely beneficial for both countries. We see strong interest in exploring new joint opportunities among Russian and Saudi business leaders. As Saudi Arabia proceeds with its reforms and transformation, we see enormous potential in our partnership and expect investment levels to multiply by a significant factor this year and further in 2020,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment, noted.