FOR the past 30 years or so, economic development in Saudi Arabia has been almost exclusively in the central belt: Jeddah in the west, Riyadh in the center and through to the Eastern Province. With the vision — very much that of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah — that growth should spread evenly across the country, other regions have also been targeted for development. New economic cities have been announced plus a large number of new universities. Late last year, the focus was very much on expansion in the south and, at the time, it may have seemed that the north, like the poor stepsister, was being ignored. No longer. King Abdullah’s current tour of the north, to Arar, Al-Jouf and Tabuk, lays the foundations for an economic transformation that could in time rival that of the entire rest of the country. What is planned there has the potential to revolutionize not merely the region and not merely the economy of the Kingdom but that of the entire Middle East.
The king’s tour will see foundation stones laid for the new mega-economic city in Tabuk, for new universities there and in Arar, and for multibillion dollar water, electricity and transportation projects across the region. But the most important project during the royal tour is the planned causeway linking Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It is, without question, the single most significant infrastructural project in the Middle East probably in the past half-century. Reuniting the eastern and western Arab worlds — Asia and North Africa — split and kept physically apart by the presence of the state of Israel, it has obvious massive economic, social and political implications. It will turn the area into one of the world’s logistical hubs. Pilgrims from Egypt and beyond will be able to travel to Makkah and Madinah overland, making Haj and Umrah much easier, Egyptian products will be able to be transported direct to Saudi markets much quicker; Saudis will be able to drive to holiday homes and vacation centers in Egyptian resorts and Egyptians working in the Kingdom will be able to return home with far less bother and for far less money.
But it is not just bilateral developments that will flow like a mighty river: Goods will be able to move by land between Egypt and the rest of North Africa on the one side and Jordan, Syria, Iraq and the Gulf states and beyond that, Turkey and Iran.
The Channel Tunnel, linking the UK and France, has transformed the regions at both ends, making them among the most economically active and wealthiest spots on the planet. That is the nature of regional hubs. Like major market places, they attract business and development. There is every reason to believe that the Saudi-Egyptian Causeway will do the same, attracting investment from the whole world. Of course, these are international waters; there will be Israeli merchant and navy vessels passing on them. But they will not challenge or prevent this project from transforming the Kingdom’s northern region and enriching the entire Saudi economy.
