The Global Competitiveness Forum 2016 in its 9th session kicked off its works with the discussion on "Competitive sectors that will push growth and innovation in the future".

During the session, the Minister of Commerce and Industry Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah and the Minister of Health and President of the Board of Directors of Saudi Aramco, Engineer Khalid Al-Faleh delivered speeches.

Before the first session of the Forum, the Minister Al-Faleh said "Despite lower oil prices, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's economy is growing by 5% and this growth has doubled several times, and will grow over the next 50 years at such percentage of growth or even more, pointing out that the Kingdom is working to diversify its sources of income and switches to innovation and creativity in the Saudi economy and make it a knowledge-based one.

He added that there are challenges facing the local economy and we will turn them into opportunities, because there are great investment opportunities in the Kingdom in the sectors of information technology, health care, tourism, and financial and telecommunications services," noting that the Kingdom will switch to manufacturing and promotion of industries, and it will build more high technologies, which require well-educated and highly specialized jobs for citizens.