RIYADH, Aug 10: Foreign investments in Saudi Arabia have exceeded $12 billion in the past two years, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) said in a statement on Saturday.

In the past week, SAGIA awarded licences for four projects with total expected investments of more than $283 million, the statement said.

The Omega Sugar Company, a Canadian-Spanish joint venture, obtained a licence to establish a sugar factory in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia, which requires investments worth 60 million dollars, SAGIA said.

The factory will produce some 500,000 tons of sugar a year for export and local consumption.

A Saudi-German firm, Gulf Das Co., had received the green light to invest in a $213 million plant to produce magnesium and potassium chloride, SAGIA said Monday.

Based on feasibility studies, the project will produce 20,000 tons of magnesium and 48,000 tons of potassium chloride a year and will employ 300 workers, SAGIA added.

SAGIA also awarded a $6.7 million investment for a Lebanese poultry project and a $2.7 million investment to set up a cornflakes factory.

With these projects, total investment licences granted to foreign and local investors by SAGIA since its establishment in April 2000 now stand at $12.1 billion, $9.2 billion of which was earmarked before September 11, 2001.

A total of 1,375 investment licences have been granted so far, of which 604 worth $7.17 billion were for industrial projects and 768 licences worth $4.93 billion for services.

Investments owned wholly by foreign investors totalled 942 projects worth $8.8 billion, while joint Saudi-foreign ventures accounted for 433 projects valued at $3.3 billion.

SAGIA was set up to promote foreign investment in a country that receives more than 80 per cent of its income from oil.

Sectors such as telecommunications, insurance, oil exploration, security, retail and wholesale, education, and land and sea transport are among 19 activities still barred to foreign investors.—AFP