The government is in talks with a European car builder about building a plant in the kingdom, oil producer Saudi Aramco said in an article published in its in house magazine. The country also signed a memorandum of understanding with a Japanese truck manufacturer about a factory. Saudi Aramco, which didn’t name the companies approached to build factories, developed the plan to create industry clusters like car and consumer goods manufacturing, it said in the article in the Spring 2009 edition of Dimensions magazine.
Middle Eastern countries are seeking to expand into industries like petrochemicals and plastics that can benefit from access to ample supplies and lower priced fuels. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are all planning aluminium smelters and building chemical plants.
The country has also signed two deals with firms to explore refrigerator manufacturing in Saudi Arabia and with a mining company to build a 400,000 ton-per-year aluminium mill, Saudi Aramco said.
