Riyadh, March 07, 2022, SPA -- The General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) has announced the signing of 22 industrial partnerships with domestic and international defense companies on the sidelines of Riyadh’s first World Defense Show. The agreements have a combined value of around SAR8 billion and cover a broad range of activities, including the direct purchase of military systems, the building of production lines, knowledge transfer and training, and the localization of technologies and services. The deals come in line with GAMI’s Industrial Participation Program, an initiative launched in 2019 as the successor of Saudi Arabia’s Economic Offset Program to capitalize on existing capabilities and to generate new investments in the defense industries. The signing of the industrial partnerships represents a remarkable success for the Kingdom’s inaugural World Defense Show. The international trade event is a biannual forum for leading defense companies and policymakers, and an opportunity for the Kingdom to showcase the many investment opportunities emerging from its dynamic defense industry. This year’s event is taking place over four days, from March 6 to 9, and is focused on the theme of defense interoperability across all domains – air, land, sea, space and security. GAMI is the founder of the WDS and the defense industries sector’s regulator. It is overseeing a process of deep industry reform, with an overall goal of retaining 50% of defense spending in the Kingdom by 2030. A cornerstone of the Kingdom’s defense industries sector strategy, the Industrial Participation Program is a key driver of value creation and localization in the partnership between GAMI and defense contractors. In addition, GAMI is implementing a strategy centered on the development of Saudi Arabia’s human capital, the fostering of industrial partnerships, and a program of supply chain localization that has identified more than 70 domestic investment opportunities worth tens of billions of dollars. --SPA 19:36 LOCAL TIME 16:36 GMT 0028 www.spa.gov.sa/w1702176