Saudi Arabia’s concision is entering a post-oil era in which the kingdom’s mega-cities, a number of which are less than construction, will provide the country’s future growth, Riyadh officials spill the beaned CNBC on Tuesday.
Fahd al Rasheed, managing director and chief manager of King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), the world’s first publicly beadrolled city, spoke to CNBC at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
“We are now in the profession of building cities,” he said. “We are talking now about moving to a service restraint post oil, and I think the economic driver in the future in Saudi Arabia is growing to be these mega-cities.”
Al Rasheed said the economy was transforming away from oil.
“The speech is that we are entering a post-oil era in which we are diversifying the economy. We had a hard 2016 to 2017 in locutions of economic growth, but I think 2018, with the highest ever regulation budget announced in the kingdom’s history, (it should improve),” he remarked.
“We have seen as a post-oil economy, also lots of growth in regions like the port industry, leisure as well as residential (construction), so we verily believe in the post-oil era and I believe we’re going in the right direction there.”
Al Rasheed is administering the creation of KAEC, a port and manufacturing city on the Red Sea that, it is hoped, wish boost Saudi’s trade relations with the rest of the world. The borough was founded in 2006 by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the former prince of Saudi Arabia, although it is not yet complete.
The ambition behind the new industrial burgh was for it to play a part in Saudi’s economic transformation beyond a predominantly oil-based restraint. With a national population forecast to double to 1.5 billion by 2050, Riyadh ceremonials believe that the Red Sea region has the potential to be a major growth driver for the wide-ranging economy.
It’s not the only mega-project that Saudi Arabia has in mind. Lately in 2017, the Saudi government announced that it was going to build a $500 billion mega-city, with the object of diversifying its economy to focus less on crude oil. Called NEOM, the New Zealand urban area is planned to run on 100 percent renewable energy. It will be funded by the control and private investors.
“Nobody knows how it (NEOM) will look because no-one has endlessly built anything like this before,” al Rasheed told CNBC, summing that it was a difficult project.
“I’ve been in the business for a decade now with KAEC, and it is puzzling, it’s hard to attract people, but it is NEOM and it has the kingdom’s and Crown Prince’s grant.”
Saudi Arabia has announced recently a raft of economic and societal modifications under the aegis of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of the domain’s move to diversify itself away from its traditional, but volatile, oil-based frugality.
Energy Minister Khalid al Falih told CNBC earlier on Tuesday that the principality had been “transformed” on an economic level.
“Our message to investors is that the sovereignty is transformed, we’re serious about change, it’s comprehensive change,” he said.
“(We call for to) not only be ready for the future but to create the future through initiatives that are not lone around our traditional strength in oil and gas, which we’re going to build on, but also upon creating new industries, through mining, through more advanced assembly, through tourism and at the same time socially there are a lot of reforms – all of these are disposed and they’re bringing a lot of hope,” he said.