Saudi Aramco meets with major Turkish contracting companies

Officials of Saudi Aramco held a meeting with members of the Turkish Contractors Union in the capital, Ankara, under the name “Job Opportunities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” to evaluate opportunities for cooperation in the investment field between the two sides.

Turkish contractors aim to gain a share of the Saudi investment market, the total size of which is estimated at $3 trillion, and to raise the volume of their investments to $10 billion per year.

The statement of the Turkish Federation of Contractors (TMB) on Sunday pointed to the decline in the volume of Turkish investments and businesses in Russia, which is its largest market outside the country, due to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The volume of investments of Turkish contractors in Russia decreased from $11 billion in the past years to $2.3 billion in 2022, to only $626 million in the past five months.

Turkish contractors want to fill this shortfall in the volume of investments through the Saudi market, especially after the recent steps taken by Saudi Aramco to implement new investments in the Kingdom.

Aramco’s investment portfolio amounts to $50 billion annually, and Turkish contracting companies aim to acquire $10 billion of it.

In this context, Aramco officials held a meeting with members of the Turkish Contractors Union in the capital, Ankara, under the name “Job Opportunities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” attended by representatives of about 80 Turkish contracting and technical consulting companies.

In a speech delivered by the President of the Union, Erdal Arn, at the meeting, he expressed his happiness for establishing business partnerships with Aramco in the future.

Arn referred to introducing Turkish contracting companies to the projects that Saudi Aramco wants to implement and discussing cooperation possibilities.

And as a continuation of this meeting, a delegation of Turkish contractors will go to the Kingdom in the summer in order to closely examine the details, according to the same source.

Arn pointed out that Saudi Arabia ranks sixth in terms of the volume of foreign investments by Turkish contractors.

He stressed the desire of Turkish contractors to contribute to the development program of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

On the other hand, the Vice President of Energy Systems in Saudi Aramco, Abdul Karim Al-Ghamdi, expressed his thanks to the Turkish Contractors Association for the extensiveness they provided about Aramco’s work and job opportunities in the Kingdom for Turkish contracting companies.

Al-Ghamdi pointed to the good reputation of Turkish contracting companies and the presence of a large number of respected construction companies among them, and that Aramco is willing to benefit from the expertise of Turkish companies in order to achieve its goals.

Al-Ghamdi indicated that Aramco’s investment portfolio includes investments in oil, natural gas, petrochemicals, energy, electricity, infrastructure, housing units, and others.

He revealed their intention to start implementing projects whose size exceeds 100 billion dollars, indicating that they are currently in the planning stage.