Participants attend a panel discussion at the In-Kingdom Total Value Add (IKTVA) Forum in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on Nov. 26, 2018. Saudi oil company Aramco Monday signed deals worth 27.5 billion U.S. dollars with local and international suppliers at the fourth In-Kingdom Total Value Add Forum and Exhibition in eastern Saudi Arabia's city of Dhahran. (Xinhua/Tu Yifan)
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Saudi oil company Aramco Monday signed deals worth 27.5 billion U.S. dollars with local and international suppliers.
The company signed the deals at the fourth In-Kingdom Total Value Add (IKTVA) Forum and Exhibition in eastern Saudi Arabia's city of Dhahran.
The annual event supports the IKTVA program and Saudi Aramco's localization strategy, to build a world-class supply chain and establish Saudi Arabia as a globally-competitive energy hub in line with Vision 2030, the kingdom's economic diversification program.
"Our 2018 IKTVA Forum marked the half-way point to our local-content goals, and the event has underlined the win-win nature of our program with many of our international suppliers increasing their market share or moving their manufacturing to the kingdom," said Saudi Aramco President Amin Hassan Al-Nasser.
Saudi Aramco launched the IKTVA program in December 2015 in order to benefit from its relations with service providers and manufacturers to develop the Saudi Aramco's goals of raising local content to about 70 percent by the end of 2021.
Held on Monday and Tuesday, this year's IKTVA Forum and Exhibition attracted more than 1,000 local and international energy-sector service and equipment suppliers and manufacturers.
