‘New Riyadh-Dammam Railway Line Needed’

RIYADH, 31 July 2005 — A study by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce recommended the establishment of a new railway line between Riyadh and Dammam to meet the increasing production of Riyadh factories and to ease the transport of Riyadh production to Eastern Province seaports for export, Al-Madinah reported. More than 1,259 Riyadh factory productions are facing a difficult time by transporting the products by trucks. According to the study, 2,730 million tons of Riyadh factory production was shipped from Riyadh to Dammam in 2004. About 49 percent of the production was transported by railway and the other half by trucks, while only one percent shipped by air.