JEDDAH, 10 October — A conference intended to lure European companies into investing in Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure sector will be held in Switzerland next week, the organizers said yesterday.
Osama Al-Kurdi, secretary-general of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said the council will organize the conference in Geneva between Oct.17-18.
“The conference will discuss a number of issues of interest to European investors. These include gas projects, reforms that have been introduced in the energy sector and the privatization of some state-run projects, in addition to investing in water and other projects. The aim is to attract investments in the infrastructure sector,” Al-Kurdi said.
The Kingdom hopes to achieve an annual growth of 6.85 percent annually over the coming four years until the end of the country’s seventh development plan (2000-2005).
The targets set in the plan for the infrastructure sector include: Constructing 2,500 kilometers of new water networks, replacing 2,000 kilometers and implementing 130,000 domestic connections, constructing 2,800 kilometers of wastewater networks, implementing 170,000 domestic wastewater connections and building treatment plants with a capacity of 450,000 cubic maters per day, asphalting 1,600 kilometers of main roads and 11,000 of secondary roads, increasing the service coverage rate to 25 telephone lines per hundred people and reduce the disparities in the rate of service coverage between the rural and urban areas, providing electricity service to some 800,000 new subscribers, providing 57,000 state loans with a total value of SR15.7 billion for the construction of 70,000 housing units and providing 110 million square meters of residential land to meet growing demand for housing and expanding some of the existing industrial cities for maximum capacity utilization.
