Saudi EV charging infrastructure JV formation and licensing support

The situation

SOLUM set out to build local production of EV chargers and core power conversion and control components with Saudi Arabia as its base. Local manufacturing, the supply chain and an operating structure all had to be put in place at the same time, and none of it could proceed without the Saudi government's licensing and approvals process and a local partner the company could rely on.

Little organised information on Saudi industrial incentive schemes was available in Korea, and there was no ready way to verify candidate partners. We started from the point of reconfirming whether market entry was viable at all.

What we did

Outcome

SIP approval from the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM) was secured, and the joint venture with local partner AL BAKHEET is still in progress. The annual production target (5,000 AC units and 1,000 DC units) and the 40% local sourcing target within three years are being pursued on the basis of that approval.

What this case shows

With industrial incentives in the Middle East, the procedure and partner verification take longer than the application paperwork. Market research, licensing advisory and partner matching have to run through one team in sequence to shorten the time to approval.