The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia), in partnership with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, will be hosting the Global FDI Summit in Riyadh in October. The event comes as Saudi Arabia prepares to host the G20 summit this year. “Saudi Arabia has seen highly encouraging growth in foreign direct investment throughout 2019,” said Ibrahim Al Omar, governor of Sagia in a statement on Sunday. “This therefore presents the perfect opportunity to bring together key decision makers from across the economy at the Global FDI Summit 2020 to identify the key challenges and establish solutions to stimulate FDI on a global scale.” Saudi Arabia saw record levels of foreign investment in 2019, with more than 1,100 new international companies establishing operations in the Kingdom in 2019 – up 54 per cent in 2018 and three times more than in 2017, according to an earlier report by Sagia. The kingdom was also ranked the world’s top improver and reformer by the World Bank, climbing 30 places in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report, more than any other country. “Saudi Arabia has seen FDI increase for two consecutive years. The achievement is remarkable against the backdrop of global FDI decline to its lowest level of the past decade,” James Zhan, senior director of investment and enterprise division at UNCTAD said. “It reflects the strong investor confidence in the country and the success of reforms under Vision 2030.”