Posted Sep 29, 2022, 4:16 PMUpdated on Sep 29, 2022 at 4:22 p.m.
After more than 18 months of waiting, the Saudi sovereign fund will take its first steps on the bond market. It should issue, in the coming days, a green bond for several billion dollars. A choice at first sight surprising, while Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s leading producers of hydrocarbons. The Saudi kingdom has set itself the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, ten years later than most other countries. And it is counting on the Public Investment Fund (PIF), with its 620 billion dollars in assets, to finance the transformation of its economy.
The PIF has thus developed, with the help of the asset management giant BlackRock, an ESG framework (environmental, social and governance issues) that applies to its future investments. This work was used to develop its green financing strategy. The PIF must thus develop 70% of the renewable energy program of the Saudi kingdom and plans to invest more than 10 billion dollars in green projects by 2026, according to the prospectus of the operation consulted by Bloomberg.
