The promise was kept. It was January when Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni returned from Ad Al-Ula with a 10 billion cooperation agreement in hand, launching the Business Forum.
The bilateral meeting between Italy and Saudi Arabia has now been held, during which the Government set itself the objective of increasing national exports from 6.2 billion euros this year to 7.1 billion by 2026.
The Business forum and Ice, the former foreign trade agency
Thanks to the collaboration between the Ice agency, the Italian embassy and the Minister of Investment in Riyadh, as many as 400 representatives of large (but above all small and medium) Italian and 600 Saudi companies exhibited projects and signed commercial agreements.
The discussion areas were structured around the following thematic points:
- infrastructure;
- sustainable automotive and transport;
- construction and furniture;
- pharmaceutical;
- technology;
- agritech and agroindustry;
- sport.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was present, also to supervise the progress of the project concerning Diriyah, the UNESCO archaeological heritage site.
Diriyah: expertise in exchange for tourism?
The project concerning the historical site in At-Turaif, very close to the capital of the emirs, according to more accurate estimates should be completed by 2030. But it is not simply a question of restoration and conservation of the first nucleus of the capital of the Saudi region.
In fact, accusations of touristification are emerging, a process in which entire neighborhoods (or sometimes cities, as in the case of Italian art cities) are transformed to meet the needs of mass tourism. It often leads to rising house prices, the replacement of local services with tourist businesses and the loss of residents.
The historic heart of the desert, built between 1727 and 1818, will be integrated into an urban planning suitable for welcoming very high flows of tourists. There is talk of underground car parks with over 10,000 parking spaces, more than 20 hotels and a huge commercial area.
The style chosen for new buildings will be najdiin harmony with the typical architecture of the UNESCO heritage core, thus blurring the boundaries between the museum, of just under 30 hectares, and the city, which is preparing to host up to 100 thousand people a day.
Expert criticism and the impact on local communities
The effects of such integration are viewed with perplexity by several scholars, in particular M. Saad Hanif and Müge Rıza (respectively architect and urban planner and researcher in the same sector at the University of the Eastern Mediterranean).
According to the two scholars, the desire to enhance a site to the point of transforming the ruins of a ghost town into a living urban fabric should not be demonized. However, we must ask ourselves how much historical authenticity would be lost.
Secondly, what is considered less and less is the impact that such a tourism project would have on local communities. In fact, a study published in Mdpi on the theme of sustainability, it denounces the lack of integration of the Aboriginal population within the process of change.
Export to Saudi Arabia: not just machinery and knowledge
In short, what steps have been taken with respect to the January agreement between Meloni and Mohamed bin Salman?
Italy was able to rise from eighth to seventh trading partner of Saudi Arabia. With the Business Forum, which ended on November 25, the two states have drawn up the conditions to mutually increase exports.
Certainly the structural shortage of raw materials in the Bel country, especially in the energy sector, will constitute a large part of the investments in infrastructure in Arabia.
Oil, unfortunately, will still represent too large a share of the fuel used to produce our electricity. Italy, on the other hand, has taken a stand against the green transition and the decarbonisation of energy.
