Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister Muhammad Al-Jadaan has said that the Kingdom is conducting negotiations with companies producing COVID-19 vaccines to provide them to low-income countries, such as Yemen and some African countries.

In his speech on Tuesday at the virtual World Economic Forum in Davos, which was live-streamed on the forum’s Twitter account, Al-Jadaan added that Saudi Arabia is currently negotiating with many companies producing these vaccines to provide them to low-income countries as they will not be able to obtain adequate vaccines through the COVAX program.

The COVAX program is a global mechanism for purchasing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines, and the program aims to vaccinate about 20 percent of Yemen's most vulnerable population.

In a related context, Al-Jadaan said that his country assumed the presidency of the G20 last year, while it had to deal with the double shocks of the epidemic and the plunge in oil prices.

The Saudi finance minister expressed his optimism about the results of the efforts made by the G20, which will appear during the current year after the difficulties faced by the countries of the world in 2020.