175Since the opening of its economy in 1991, the Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) from the Kingdom has been slow and even negligible. Between
2000 and September 2017, Saudi companies have invested just US$78
million in various projects in India, including US$14 million since April
2016 (India, DIPP 2018 ). The Kingdom, which is known for its largest oil
reserves in the world, ranks 50 in terms of FDI investments in India and
accounts for a meagre 0.02 per cent of total FDI inflows in the last 17 years.
The situation has marginally improved in the previous three years, inciden-
tally coinciding with the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister.
Since May 2014, India has been attracting Saudi investments in construc-
tion, infrastructure, petroleum and other allied sectors, and between April
2014 and March 2017, the FDI from Saudi sources totalled US$35 mil-
lion, nearly half the total investments since 2000 (India, DIPP 2018 ).
At the same time, the Indian investments in the Kingdom have been
significantly extensive and varied. The data put out by the Saudi Arabian
General Investment Authority (SAGIA) indicates that as many as 426
licenses have been issued between 2010 and April 2015 to Indian compa-
nies for joint ventures or full-owned subsidies which would bring invest-
ments worth US$1.62 billion into the Kingdom (India, MEA 2016a).
These licenses were issued to various public and private Indian companies
in diverse sectors such as management and consultancy services, construc-
tion projects, telecommunication, information technology, pharmaceuti-
cal. Moreover, partly due to the procedural and logistical issues, several
Indian companies such as Punj Llyod, Lulu Hypermarket, TCIL, Al
Kabeer, JN Holding, Simplex Infrastructure have established collaborative
ventures with local Saudi companies and have been working in the
Kingdom in areas such as education, designing, consultancy, financial ser-
vices and software development. Prominent Indian companies such as
Wipro, Tata Motors, New India Assurance, TCS, Godrej, Larsen &
Toubro, Shapoorji Pallonji SBI and Air India have been operating in the
Kingdom and cater to the requirements of the Saudi as well as expatriate
population.
A spurt in the volume of trade and increasing two-way investments can be
noticed since the visit of Prime Minister Modi to the Kingdom in April 2016.
A few days before Modi’s visit, the Petroleum Ministry sent a delegation
comprising of officials from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Oil and
Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)—both among the Fortune 500
Companies identified by Forbes—to explore the cooperation and investment
possibilities in the energy sector. India has been negotiating with SAGIA to
ENERGY, ECONOMICS AND EXPATRIATES