RIYADH, 2 October 2007 — Minister of commerce and industry, chairman of the board of directors of the Saudi Organization for Industrial Estates and Technology Zones (SOIETZ) Hashim Yamani signed here yesterday contracts worth SR3 billion for water management services to be executed in three industrial cities in the Kingdom in cooperation with the International Company for Water Distribution (Tawzea). The deals were considered to be the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East. Tawzea said the SR3 billion contracts will cover a span of 30 years.
The first project covered in the contracts is for rehabilitation, operation, management and maintenance of the water supply in Jeddah’s 1st Industrial City.
The second project is the rehabilitation, operation, management and maintenance of the water supply and sewage systems in Riyadh’s 2nd Industrial City.
The third project is a build-operate-transfer (BOT) and maintenance project for the water supply, sewage systems and irrigation in Al-Qasim’s 1st Industrial City.
The projects will provide water services in a comprehensive and integrated method while fulfilling all the requirements and water needs of industries in these cities.
The minister said the projects are within the organization’s strategy for the allocation of integrated services within the industrial cities. He said that he would soon be signing other water projects for the industrial cities in Dammam and Al-Ahsa. No specific time was given.
Tawfiq Al-Rabea, general director of SOIETZ, said the signing of the contracts for the allocation of water services was part of the system to upgrade its services “in order to overcome all obstacles industrialists might face.” He also said the projects would help make industrial cities in the Kingdom benchmark cities and models for others.
“Today we are taking a big step forward at a regional level for the future of the nation and it is a pleasure to witness the evolution of our industrial cities,” he added.
“We expect the implementation of the project in Jeddah between 5 to 9 months from now,” said Asim Al-Hakeem, spokesman for Tawzea. Implementation of the Riyadh and Al-Qasim projects was expected within 18 months, he added.
“Jeddah’s industrial city comes first because the project does not cover the sewage system,” Al-Hakeem said.
Tawzea is one of the first national companies to provide water services and facilities management in a comprehensive and integrated method. The company is a 50/50 percent joint venture between AmiWater, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian Amiantit Company, specializing in water management projects, and the Saudi Company for Industrial Services (SISCO).
The Kingdom’s 14 industrial cities, with a total area of 92,773, 051 square meters, are in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Al-Qasim, Al-Ahsa, Makkah, Madinah, Hail, Tabuk and Najran. Several of the cities are already occupied. Some 300,000 employees currently work in the cities’ 2,000 plants.
