The announcement that four consortia have been given the go-ahead by the Supreme Economic Council to submit their plans and prices for the landbridge rail link between the Red Sea and the Gulf brings forward in one giant step a project that will have massive consequences for the Saudi economy. The multibillion-riyal project — one of the largest civil engineering schemes ever undertaken in the Middle East, necessitating 28 kilometers of tunnels and 100 bridges — is on par with the massive infrastructural developments of the 1970s oil boom that transformed Saudi Arabia economically, socially, demographically and physically.
It is not the short-term boost with the creation of thousands of jobs in the construction and attendant industries that marvels; that is the icing on the cake. It is the long-term opportunities that the link will create. A 950-km line between Jeddah and Riyadh, the upgrading of the existing 450-km line between Riyadh and Dammam and a new 115-km line between Dammam and Jubail, the petrochemical industries capital of Saudi Arabia are together going to change transportation dramatically not merely within Saudi Arabia but regionally and internationally. For example, instead of an eight-day sea journey from the Gulf to the Red Sea, products from Jubail heading west or to the Mediterranean will be able to move in less than 48 hours by container to Jeddah and from there to ports abroad. Costs will be cut, trade stimulated. It will be an enormous economic boost for Jeddah. Dammam too will become a major international transshipment center, with all the implications in terms of new logistics companies setting up, plus all the services industries and retail businesses that will follow on from such developments. Riyadh too will benefit.
But the benefits go way beyond this. Transport creates and stimulates trade and jobs. The history of communications development proves that time and again. The landbridge will stimulate industry and business along its path as no other one single project has done. It will throw up new towns, new business parks, new industrial zones, new factories, and new service companies, all founded on the opportunities created by the new line. Tens of thousands of new jobs are going to be created. That puts the landbridge at the heart of Saudi growth, as vital and as historic as the Gas Initiative or the expansion of the industrial cities of Jubail and Yanbu.
And there will be other links attached — a line to Yanbu, east-west passenger services on the landbridge soon after freight starts rolling, passenger lines linking Jeddah with the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah and transporting 2.5 million pilgrims during the Haj period, 7.5 million Umrah visitors throughout the rest of the year and providing a commuter service between Makkah and Jeddah. This is government investment as it should be — investment in infrastructure, not in subsidies. Saudi Arabia has launched itself on a transportation upgrade that will pay immense dividends.
