Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources said it had provided $6 billion for a steel plate complex and an electric car battery metal factory as part of plans to attract $32 billion in investment in the mining sector.

The Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef said that the ministry’s goal is to finance nine projects for minerals and metals. The kingdom is seeking to diversify its economy away from oil by pumping billions of dollars in “Vision 2030”, and mining is among the sectors that Riyadh aims to expand.

The nine projects include a $4 billion steel plate complex for shipbuilding, projects in the oil and gas, construction and defence sectors, and a “green” steel complex, which will provide automobiles, food packaging, machinery and equipment, and other industrial sectors. Both projects are already underway, as is the $2 billion Electric Battery Metal Factory.

Last month, the Saudi government signed an agreement to buy between 50,000 and 100,000 electric cars over ten years from the Lucid Group, in which the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, has a majority stake.

Alkhorayef said that the projects would provide more than 14,000 job opportunities, adding that the ministry is studying 145 exploration license applications from foreign companies. He counted that the investments would continue to make the Kingdom a hub for production, mining and logistics in the region stretching from Africa to Asia and also support the transformation of the Saudi mining sector so that it can realize its full potential.