Media Centre

King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) hosted the Global Innovation Summit (GIS) and the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils Meeting (GFCC) organized by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) at Bay La Sun Hotel and Marina on 1-3 November 2015. The event was held under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, Governor of Makkah Province and Consultant of The Custodian of The Two Holy Mosques.

200 local and international representatives of major companies and interested sectors, influential intellectual competitiveness leaders and chief executives from the public and private sectors participated in the two events.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was selected to host the sixth summit and meeting. Previous hosts since the event was established in 2010 have been the USA, Brazil, UAE, South Korea and Canada.

Welcoming the elite gathering of visionaries and thought leaders in the competitiveness field, Mr. Fahd Al-Rasheed, Group CEO and Managing Director of KAEC, expressed his pleasure at hosting the prestigious event and contributing to the creation of innovative ideas to support international competitiveness.

“KAEC is becoming a new platform for knowledge exchange and a key destination for international investment,” said Mr. Al-Rasheed. “The city is part of our leadership’s vision to create a knowledge-based driver of the industrial and economic development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, creating jobs for national citizens and benefitting the commercial, industrial and social sectors of the kingdom.”

KAEC occupies a prime position on the Red Sea coast which offers investors access to more than 250 million consumers in the Arab World and East Africa through the King Abdullah Port, which began operations in 2014. More than 100 local and foreign companies have invested in operations in the city’s Industrial Valley, a 55 million square meter development focused on the six cluster industries that are at the core of the kingdom’s diversification into non-oil sectors: logistics, automotive, pharmaceutical, building materials, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and packaging.