Lord Dominic Johnson has been enthusiastic about Saudi Arabia’s growth story since he first started visiting the Kingdom in the 1990s, culminating in his helping to lead a 450+ strong UK business delegation to Riyadh last year, the UK’s largest trade mission for over a decade.

“Saudi Arabia is completely different to what you imagine, completely transformed,” the financier and former Minister for Investment remarked, addressing an audience of senior representatives from leading institutional investors, financial institutions and global businesses looking to be a part of the Kingdom’s future in a discussion about trade, business and investment at Inside Saudi’s second Diriyah House London event.

“When you're talking to young Saudis, you hear from them how they are going to create an amazing country and make a great life for themselves and generate a lot of wealth. And I love that.”

Lord Johnson believes this enterprising spirit is evident at all levels of Saudi society and makes the Kingdom one of the UK’s most compelling trading partners.

“Every company in the UK should be thinking about exporting to Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The leadership and delivery from their experienced government ministers is high quality and consistent. They are putting so much into future technology and how you use the environment to live more efficiently, so the opportunities to export the skill sets we have in the UK are just enormous. Consulting, headhunting, interior design, arts, media – the intellectual capital and creativity we have by the bucketload presents an enormous opportunity. And not just for big multinationals, but small and medium-sized businesses as well and even sole traders.”

That opportunity, he emphasised, is supported by a digitalised and business-friendly regulatory environment.

“It is really easy to do business with Saudi Arabia, as over 8,000 UK businesses have already found,” he explained, highlighting “an environment where the young, aspiring, ambitious people of the world can go and make a good early start to their careers”.

“On top of that, the British embassy in Riyadh has a very good trade team backed by high calibre people in the Department for International Trade here in London. They’re very strong on help and advice,” he added.

Lord Johnson urged investors and businesspeople not to limit their view of Saudi Arabia to traditional sectors: there are “opportunities in so many areas”, he told the audience.

“The first that jumped out at me was education and training: the opportunity to build on the phenomenal knowledge economy we've got in the UK to skill up the population.

“I also quite like some of the off-centre possibilities such as esports and gaming and the new media around that. I know the ambition for the Saudis to create a whole new media world is really powerful.”

He was also keen to emphasise the “huge opportunities for anyone interested in engineering and design”.

“I think the fundamental need for technology transfer is huge – making clean energy buses for example. It's clean tech, it's advanced manufacturing, where the capital isn’t always around in the UK for these kind of projects, but it IS in Saudi Arabia in a very attractive way for British companies looking to partner with the Saudis. That's a very sensible way for them to build their economy and it's a very sensible opportunity for UK businesses to take advantage of.

“The opportunity to create a truly sustainable energy revolution – Saudi Arabia could definitely do that.”

Referencing the setting of the event, the London showroom of the over $63 billion, 14 sq km Diriyah giga-project, Lord Johnson described Saudi Arabia’s construction ambitions as being “totally beyond anything that we're doing in the West, let alone in the United Kingdom”.

“Nowhere in the world has got such phenomenal growth ambitions and it's starting with such a clean and level playing field. Everywhere else, the complexities of doing business are significant.

“To create something like Diriyah is unique in the history of investment, construction and development. It really boggles the mind. So it’s an amazing chance for people to come and get involved in the creation of something entirely new and gigantic.

“That’s the vision that MBS has given his country. And frankly, I'd love to see a lot more of that in this country.”

These sentiments were echoed by those guests with previous experience in Saudi Arabia.

John Naylor, an energy and sustainability consultant, first visited in 1977 as a consulting engineer. Recollecting his first impressions, he observed that “there was a lot of work to be done, a lot of understanding to take on board, really across the whole community. But their attitudes have changed and evolved and there is an atmosphere of excitement and opportunity and growth”.

Banker Søren Nikolajsen worked in Saudi Arabia for a decade, taking Alawwal Bank to a merger with the Saudi British Bank in 2019, and recalled a Diriyah in the early 1990s “when you could drive up to a well outside Riyadh, bring your picnic and just hang out for the day”.

The change since, he commented, is “spectacular, quite extraordinary, with a large and increasing middle class that gives opportunities for pretty much any product, any service that you need in large economies. There’s also quite a young, tech-savvy population. So plenty of opportunities across multiple sectors.”

He continued: “I would highly recommend to anybody to visit Saudi. It’s a gem most people don’t really know about”.

Inside Saudi's exclusive series of events at Diriyah House London continues this autumn. To experience an immersive journey through Diriyah and inspiring conversations with distinguished guests, register here.

For more on how the future is being built at Diriyah, watch our behind-the-scenes footage of Diriyah here and the highlights of our inaugural event here.

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