Saudi seeks to strengthen the civil aviation sector in the years ahead, particularly considering the sector’s current state, which requires signaling global cooperation and enabling collaborative efforts to achieve aspirations, innovation, and the implementation of policies needed to ensure the industry’s long-term viability.
Saudi’s Minister of Transport and Logistic Services Saleh Al-Jasser said that the Kingdom seeks to enhance its investments in the transport and logistics sector by more than $100 billion, transport 300 million passengers and five million tons of goods, and connect with 250 destinations around the world by the end of the current decade.
This came during the Future Aviation Forum, which kicked off today with the participation of 2000 representatives from 60 countries.
He added that ithe country is scheduled to launch aviation companies having the best services among global aviation companies and to develop airport facilities through two headquarters based in Riyadh and Jeddah.
The minister noted that “There are many opportunities for the private sector to realize our ambitions,” pointing out that the ministry has changed more than 25 airports into holding companies to be ready for privatization, in addition to approving hundreds of applications for airplanes and opening new destinations for several countries.
The minister reviewed aviation services and Saudi’s openness to the world and discussed promising opportunities for the international aviation sector, where Saudi is connected with 250 global destinations with three times the number of passengers and five times the volume of goods, expressing hope for the country to become number one at in the Middle East by 2030.
Saudi Press Agency (WAS) reported that the forum is considered a qualitative and unique international event in the civil aviation sector for providing an opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas and discussing the best experiences and practices in developing resources and capacity.
The event will witness the signing of over 50 agreements and memoranda of understanding, in addition to launching several important policies and strategies for the civil aviation sector, and signing a big number of partnerships between public and private sectors.
A total of 60 countries are participating in the forum with over 2,000 attending and more than 4,000 people who registered in the forum’s events.
For his part, President of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Duailej stressed that Saudi sees it is time to put a limit on economic hardships facing the international aviation sector.
Moreover, he reiterated the importance of joint work (as a joint industry) to face future crises, noting that the only way to implement this is through putting the will to compete aside and holding permanent cooperation that can enable the industry to collectively respond to any future epidemic and limit its impact on businesses.
