US and Saudi Arabian companies signed business deals worth tens of billions of dollars during a visit by US President Donald Trump, as Riyadh seeks help to develop its economy beyond oil, Reuters reported.

National oil firm Saudi Aramco said it signed $50 billion of agreements with US firms. Energy minister Khalid Al Falih said deals involving all the companies totalled over $200 billion, many of them designed to produce things in Saudi Arabia that had previously been imported.

"We want foreign companies to look at Saudi Arabia as a platform for exports to other markets," Falih told a conference attended by dozens of US executives.

The Public Investment Fund, Riyadh’s main sovereign wealth fund, and US private equity firm Blackstone said they were studying a proposal to create a $40 billion vehicle to invest in infrastructure projects, mainly in the US.

The vehicle would obtain $20 billion from the PIF and with additional debt financing, might invest in over $100 billion of infrastructure projects – a political boon to Trump, who has said he wants to rebuild crumbling US infrastructure. Top Saudi economic policy makers, including the finance minister and head of the kingdom’s main sovereign wealth fund, described investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia to the conference.

Saudi officials said they aimed to prepare new, streamlined rules covering direct investment by foreign firms within 12 months.

Among the deals signed, GE said it reached $15 billion of agreements involving almost $7 billion of goods and services from GE itself. They ranged from the power and healthcare sectors to the oil and gas industry and mining.

Jacobs Engineering will form a joint venture with Aramco to manage business projects in the kingdom, and McDermott International will transfer some of its ship fabrication facilities from Dubai to a new shipbuilding complex which Aramco will build within Saudi Arabia.

The Aramco-GE memorandum of understanding (MoU) plans an oil and gas investment study that will examine the feasibility of new business development across the energy value chain including enablers covering upstream, midstream, and downstream ecosystems. The MoU is expected to create 2,000 jobs. Another Aramco-GE MoU plans to undertake a digital transformation of Aramco’s operations with a goal of generating $4 billion a year in productivity improvements. A staffed digital transformation office is expected to generate 250 high-tech Saudi jobs.

An MoU was signed with National Oilwell Varco to form a Saudi combine that will provide high-specification drilling rigs and advanced drilling equipment. The MoU also aims to establish an education centre to train Saudi technicians in the maintenance and operation of the drilling technology. It is expected to create 1,000 jobs.