Saudi Arabia has approved the listing of government assets to be privatised on the Saudi stock exchange – Tadawul – following an IPO, the government announced following a virtual meeting on Tuesday.
“Assets, sectors and services planned for privatisation shall be listed in Saudi stock market through direct or indirect initial public offering,” according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
“The indirect IPO for such assets will be done through setting up companies that own the government stakes in these projects,” the SPA report added.
Efforts to privatise government assets in the kingdom form part of the country’s wider Vision 2030 goals to modernize the economy and diversify it away from its dependence on petrochemicals.
However, government efforts to attract large investor interest – such as for Saudi Aramco’s IPO – have proven difficult. In the case of Aramco, for example, the IPO was largely dependent on domestic investors.
The government had initially set a goal of generating between $9 and $10 billion in revenues through its privatisation programme by 2020.
Follow us on
