Envoy pledges to get Saudi Arabia investors
TANZANIA: NEW Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Tanzania Yahya Okiesh has expressed commitment to encourage investors from his country to come and invest in Tanzania’s tourism sector which he said has a huge potential.
Ambassador Okiesh disclosed this at the sidelines of the ongoing annual Swahili International Tourism Expo (S!TE) 2023 which is held at Mlimani City Conference Centre in Dar es Salaam.
The event has gathered 150 exhibitors and 71 international buyers from various countries across the globe.
He noted that so far Saudi Arabia does not have any investment in the Tanzania’s tourism sector it plans to encourage its investors to come to Tanzania.
“Tanzania has a lot of potential in the tourism which can attract a big number of investors from Saudi Arabia,” said the Ambassador.
He added: “Tanzania is a very peaceful country and home to very wonderful people…when I came here two weeks ago, I felt at home for me and my family.”
According to him, all these factors have been among major key factors that attracted most people, the Embassy was going to do all it can to reflect this image to the people of Saudi Arabia.
“Hopefully, very soon Tanzania would start receiving investors from Saudi Arabia,” he stressed.
He noted that recently the Saudi Arabia Airlines launched direct flights from Jeddah to Dar es Salaam, which will see more people from the Kingdom visiting Tanzania.
Talking about Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector, he observed that the responsible ministry has a strategy to increase the sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 3 per cent to 10 per cent.
The major goal was to see the number of visitors to Saudi Arabia growing from the present 18 million to 100 million by 2030.
He noted that the country envisioned to see the sector increase the absorption of the workforce by 1.6 million job opportunities which represents 10 per cent of the total workforce.
It is expected that the tourism programme in addition to major tourism projects will create job opportunities for many Saudi Arabia youths, thereby contributing to the development of the surrounding areas by boosting economic activities of those areas.
