Saudi Arabia is finalising a strategy aimed at tripling the mining sector’s contribution to the GDP by 2030, according to the kingdom’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih.

Saudi Arabia aims to implement the new mining strategy early next year. It aims to increase annual mining revenues from SR64bn ($17bn) to SR240bn by 2030.

“The ministry will develop this vital sector… double the number of work opportunities in the sector and boost exploration activities,” Al-Falih told reporters at a conference in Jeddah.

The mining sector is a key part of Riyadh’s broader agenda of transforming its hydrocarbon-dependent economy in the wake of a more than 50 per cent slide in the price of the oil from a mid-2014 levels of $115 a barrel. The government is keen to direct subsidies more toward the mining sector to explore vast untapped reserves of bauxite, used to make aluminium, as well as phosphate, gold, copper and uranium.

Unlike its GCC peers, Saudi Arabia has much larger untapped natural resources and the kingdom has already announced large scale revamp of the mining sector.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden), one of the biggest mining conglomerate in the region, plans to rope in SR97bn in annual revenue and add 90,000 jobs within five years, according to the Reuters news report.

Ma’aden Aluminium, a joint venture between Ma’aden and the US aluminium giant Alcoa, face fundamental pressures as aluminium production in China has pushed prices to multi-year lows, the report adds.

Al-Falih said the recent discovery of gas reserves on Saudi’s Red Sea coast where many of the country’s mineral reserves are located would help fuel the mining expansion.

“Energy in the kingdom will not be an obstacle at all towards developing the mining sector, we announced in the kingdom that we will double gas production,” he said