Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 16 January 2026 the Saudi Council of Ministers, via Cabinet Decision No. 468/1447 (issued 30 December 2025 / 9 Rajab 1447H), published in the Umm Al-Qura Official Gazette four sets of implementing regulations governing the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), Ras Al-Khair, Jazan, and Cloud Computing & IT Special Economic Zones. The regulations entered into force on 16 April 2026 (90 days after gazette publication) and operationalise the SEZ framework first launched by ECZA in April 2023. Each zone has its own standalone framework but they share a common headline tax package: 5% corporate income tax for up to 20 years, zero VAT on intra-SEZ and SEZ-import flows, customs-duty suspension on qualifying imports, withholding-tax exemption on dividends and approved cross-border payments, and exemption from key provisions of the Saudi Companies Law, Commercial Register Law, and Trade Names Law. KAEC focuses on advanced manufacturing, automotive, consumer goods, ICT and pharmaceuticals; Ras Al-Khair targets shipbuilding, offshore rigs and MRO; Jazan covers food processing, metals conversion and logistics for Africa-bound trade; the Cloud Computing SEZ is a virtual zone (data centres can sit anywhere in KSA, headquarters must be in Riyadh) for cloud and AI-compute workloads. The package is the operational implementation layer for the 2024 Investment Law and a core Vision 2030 FDI-attraction instrument.

On 9 December 2025, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) issued the December 2025 batch expansion of its Mandatory List — a binding instrument requiring government entities, state-owned enterprises, and sub-contractors to source listed products exclusively from Saudi domestic manufacturers meeting the LCGPA-defined local-content threshold. The December 2025 expansion brings the list to approximately 1,444 national products across 16 sectors, effective 1 March 2026, with LCGPA targeting a total of approximately 2,000 products by end-2026. The Mandatory List operationalises the demand-side layer of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 / National Industrial Strategy (NIS) industrial-policy stack, directly restricting foreign-supplier access to Saudi annual government-procurement budgets estimated at SAR 500 billion+ across central government, Aramco, PIF-portfolio entities, Ma'aden, SEC, STC, Saudi Post, and Saudi Railway.

On 28 October 2025, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) signed five localization and knowledge-transfer agreements on the sidelines of the Global Health Exhibition 2025, covering domestic manufacture and technology transfer for the biologic drugs etanercept and adalimumab (both used to treat chronic inflammatory / autoimmune conditions) and for orthopedic trauma implants. The adalimumab agreement was signed separately with Boston Oncology Arabia and Tabuk Pharmaceuticals. Boston Oncology's own disclosure of its adalimumab/ etanercept agreement (announced 4 November 2025) put the combined economic impact at over SAR 1.2 billion in cumulative GDP contribution and approximately 500 direct jobs, with production sited at its Sudair Industrial City facility (USFDA/EMA/SFDA-standard). Global Trade Alert's tracking of the same state act records seven counterparties in total (Boston Oncology, Tabuk Pharmaceuticals, Rameem Medical, Bio Vision, Sudair Pharma, Almana Company, and an additional pharma manufacturer), consistent with LCGPA's practice of bundling several related product-localization signings into one event.

On 18 October 2022, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Saudi Arabia's National Industrial Strategy (NIS) under the Vision 2030 umbrella, with delivery led by the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM). The strategy prioritises 118 segments within 12 industrial sub-sectors (including downstream chemicals, automotive, aerospace, machinery, and metals), identifies more than 800 investment opportunities estimated at ~USD 266bn, and sets binding 2030/2035 targets: triple manufacturing GDP by 2030, raise industrial exports to SAR 557bn (~USD 148bn), bring cumulative additional investment to SAR 1.3 trillion, and grow factories from ~10,000 to ~36,000 by 2035. NIS sits alongside the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP, 2019) and the Public Investment Fund's strategic-sector mandates as the third leg of the Kingdom's non-oil-economy build-out.