Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan announced that Saudi Arabia has no intention to impose income tax on individuals. “There is absolutely no intention in Saudi Arabia to impose income tax on individuals. This has been our position very clearly,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the 2024 World Economic Forum held in Davos on Friday.

“We are mobilizing local resources, we have a value-added tax (VAT), we have income tax on companies and foreign investors, and we have zakat on the local population, and there is no intention to change that (mechanism). We are actually trying to rationalize some of the burden on the economy to make it even more business-friendly,” he said.

Al-Jadaan said that Saudi Arabia has diversified into multiple other sectors, including tourism, technology and logistics. He noted that Saudi Arabia has basic logistical projects that it is building, whether they are railways or airports. “The Kingdom also plans to expand water treatment plants to ensure that this service reaches citizens and residents without interruption, in addition to a lot of renewable energy projects that we want to ensure that we have sufficient financing for them,” he said.

Al-Jadaan explained that the bonds issued by Saudi Arabia worth $12 billion will go to finance the deficit. “We have a deficit of about two percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) this year and so we need to balance this deficit. Also we need to accelerate some of the spending on major projects,” he said while noting that there are good signs that things are moving in the right direction.

DAVOS