RABIGH, 17 August 2006 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah yesterday visited King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), the world’s largest private sector development project, to review its progress.
The SR100 billion ($26.6 billion) project is being undertaken by Emaar Economic City (EEC), a consortium led by global real estate major Emaar Properties and several high profile Saudi investors.
King Abdullah toured the site of the presentation center, whose structural steelwork has been completed. Work is also under way on the project’s first boulevard — a 15 km long stretch that features over 3,000 palm trees.
Excavation work for the first city canal to run through the Red Sea Village, a component of KAEC, has started. Geotechnical investigations are being conducted for residential units, and designs have been drawn for one of the main entry gates. The first Corniche Park and marina have also been completed. “We’re extremely thankful to King Abdullah for his generous patronage of the project and his keen interest in developing KAEC as a beacon of the Kingdom’s future development,” said EEC Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar.
Abdullah’s visit follows the record-breaking completion of EEC’s initial public offering, to which more than half of the Saudi national population had subscribed. An overview of the project was presented to King Abdullah, who had officially launched KAEC at the headquarters of Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the project’s prime facilitator, in Riyadh on Dec. 20, 2005. Work on KAEC started the very next day and has now progressed significantly.
“The visit of King Abdullah highlights the importance he places on the economic reforms that he has pioneered and confirms his constant support to projects, which strengthen the Saudi economy and align it with global economies,” said SAGIA Governor Amr Al-Dabbagh. “Projects like KAEC are aimed at underpinning the new investment opportunities in the Kingdom and also offer tremendous employment opportunities .”
