Abu Dhabi: The supersized deals between Saudi Arabia and the US are expected to create thousands of jobs bolstering trade ties between the two countries, experts said on Sunday.
Deals worth in excess of $380 billion were signed during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Saturday including $110 billion arms agreement with the US companies and $50 billion worth deal between Saudi Aramco and different firms from the US.
“American investments will increase in Saudi Arabia and will create jobs for Saudis, transfer technology and bring into the fore small and medium sized businesses that will benefit from these deals,” John Sfakianakis, director of economic research at Jeddah based Gulf Research Centre told Gulf News.
“These are supersized deals that are the largest in the country’s bilateral ties with the US. It’s a win-win for both,” he said while describing the deals.
Among the deals signed on Saturday, Lockheed Martin said Saudi Arabia will procure $28 billion worth of Lockheed Martin integrated air and missile defence, combat ship, tactical aircraft and rotary wing technologies and programmes.
The defence giant also signed other agreements that are expected to create thousands of jobs both in the US and Saudi Arabia.
“The programmes in this announcement will support more than 18,000 highly skilled jobs in the US and thousands of jobs in Saudi Arabia as part of maintaining and modernising these platforms over the next 30 years,” the firm said in a statement on Sunday.
GE, Jacobs Engineering, McDermott International are the other companies, which have sealed deals with Saudi based firms during Trump’s visit.
“The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US was strategic and now it’s taken to a different level of a truly strategic partnership of the century,” Sfakianakis added.
Saudi Arabia is trying to wean the economy off oil with a focus on creating a new industrial base as part of vision 2030 envisaged by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
Ali Adou, director of asset management at Abu Dhabi-based The National Investor said the deals bode well for Saudi economy in creating of jobs and in attracting foreign direct investment into the country.
“A number of strategic projects have been announced between the two countries and the impact will be very positive on the economy and shall boost diversification.”
