RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has allocated SR11.5 billion for road construction projects in a renewed bid to expand its modern transportation system and facilitate the growing movement of people and freight.
Minister of Transport Jubara Al-Suraisery announced the funding here yesterday after making an assessment of the need to expand the Kingdom’s highways and agricultural roads, something that has been a priority for his ministry in the past five-years.
“The length of roads to be constructed in the Kingdom will total 8,250 kms during the current fiscal year (2009-2010) for which the allocation has been earmarked,” said Al-Suraisery, while speaking to newsmen here. He said that this allocation has been approved in the ministry’s budget. The Ministry of Transport is also working on expanding sea, coastal and rail networks in the Kingdom. The funds will be mainly spent on building new highways and agricultural roads, which constitute the backbone of the Saudi transportation system.
Spelling out the details of the new road projects, the transport minister said “the new budget will cover the cost of several new agricultural roads, whose total length will be about 2,118 km.”
The new agriculture roads, he said, would help diversify the local economy, giving a major boost to the agricultural sector. The Ministry of Transport will also study and design new road projects, including highways for which it will spend about SR84 million of the above allocation.
He said several new road construction and repairing projects, including pedestrian roads and bridges are currently underway.
The Kingdom has spent more than SR150 billion on the construction of roads so far during the past five year plans. The total length of roads in the Kingdom has increased from 42,249 km in 1994 to more than 175,000 km in 2008. This is in addition to the ongoing development and construction of the networks of overpasses and underpasses within various cities across the country.
