Economic history of Saudi Arabia

State run Saudi Aramco, the world's top oil company, said on April 29 that it has appointed five new members to its board including a female executive, a milestone for Saudi Arabia and the oil industry where there are few women executives.

Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil company, on April 11 announced a $44-billion deal to build a giant refinery complex in India with three Indian firms.

Saudi Aramco on Nov. 9 signed agreements worth nearly $4.5 billion with multinational oil and gas contractors, in what the company dubbed as an effort to diversify the economy.

Saudi Arabia wants to see more Turkish investors in the context of its "2030 vision" to become a global investment powerhouse, Saudi Ambassador to Ankara Walid Bin Abdul Karim al-Kharaj said on July 11.      

Saudi Aramco is to build the region's biggest shipyard in a $5.2 billion joint venture with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and others, the partners said on May 31.

The yard, to be constructed on the kingdom's Gulf coast, will have the capacity to produce four offshore rigs and 40 vessels, including three supertankers, a year, the state-owned oil giant said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia is having "serious discussions" with the New York Stock Exchange about having the NYSE as one of the exchanges for state oil giant Saudi Aramco's IPO, the Saudi foreign minister told Fox News on March 23.

Saudi Arabia on March 22 lost its high-quality credit rating from the Fitch agency, which lowered the kingdom a notch because of worsening public finances as the oil price wobbles.

Dropping its notation from AA- to A+, Fitch said it was doubtful whether Saudi Arabia could implement its reform program after a "significantly wider than expected fiscal deficit in 2016."

Egypt has received its first two oil shipments from Saudi giant Aramco after deliveries were suspended for several months over political differences, an oil ministry spokesman said on March 19.

"On Friday and Saturday, we received the first two deliveries after a resumption of the contract with Aramco," oil ministry spokesman Hamdi Abdel Aziz told AFP.

Saudi Arabia's Aramco will invest $7 billion in a giant Malaysian oil refinery project, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, as he declared ties with the kingdom were "at an all-time high."
The deal between Aramco and Malaysia's Petronas for the $27 billion project will be signed on Feb. 28, the prime minister said.     

The British pound's post-Brexit downturn is starting to hurt British exporters servicing Middle Eastern oil and petrochemical companies, including Saudi Arabia's oil industry.