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Saudi mega city projects offer business opportunities
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The ambitious King Abdullah Economic City project has been boosted by August's successful initial public offering of shares in Emaar Economic City the body that is charged
with carrying out the $26.6 billion development.
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Nearly 10 million subscribers are estimated to have bought more than $2 billion
of shares in the consortium set up by Dubai's Emaar Properties and the Saudi Aseer
Company to manage the multi-phased project. |
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The KAEC is to be established
at a site near Rabigh, 200 kilometers northwest of
Jeddah and represents the largest ever private sector development to date in Saudi
Arabia. |
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An IPO route is also expected to be taken for the $2.7 million Um Al-Qura Economic
City project near Makkah, a development to be located either on a site near the
Makkah-Jeddah main highway or near Shuaiba on the Red Sea coast. |
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The Um Al-Qura city development is the fourth to be announced since December 2005
and along with KAEC and others in Hail and Madina each will have a
specific focus. |
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Transport and logistics city |
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KAEC will concentrate on energy and transportation industries while Prince Abdul
Aziz bin Mousaed Economic City near Hail is expected to be a new base for transport
and logistical related service industries. |
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The $8 billion Hail development will create a community over a 156 million square
meters area to include an inland port with warehousing and distribution services,
agricultural processing industries as well as mining and related industries designed
to exploit the region's natural resources. Construction is due to start in September. |
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Madina's $6.8 billion project aims to accommodate knowledge-based industries such
as bio-science enterprises over a 4.8 million square meters area in an overall 13.8
million square meters development. |
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Emaar leads
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By far the largest industrial and community development is that of KAEC. This will
be built over 55 million square meters and feature a major seaport on the scale
of Rotterdam's, a major industrial area, integrated high-speed transport system
as well as a dedicated financial district containing hotels, exhibition and convention
centre in addition to educational establishments, hospitals and residential areas |
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Emaar's chairman, Mohamed Ali Alabbar says that KAEC's six components comprising
a seaport, industrial complex, education zone, a financial island, resort areas
and residential districts will make the city an important global destination |
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Amr Al-Dabbagh, governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, describes
the city projects as an aggressive bid to repatriate capital and attract value-added
foreign investments. |
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