The partnership, with established local company Mohamed Harasani Architects, will trade in the Kingdom as WS Atkins & Partners Overseas Engineering Consultants.
Following registration, the partnership is now a local company and licensed to deliver its entire range of design services across the Kingdom, including construction supervision work.
It will actively recruit skilled engineers and architects to service, from its offices in Riyadh, Jeddah and Alkhobar, a growing portfolio of major projects in the Kingdom
Chris Innes-Hopkins, director of trade and investment representing UK ambassador Sir Tom Phillips, hosted a reception at the British Consulate in Jeddah on Sunday to announce the new company.
Noting that the partnership represented a new step in Atkins 40-year presence in the Kingdom, Innes-Hopkins said that it came at a time of unparalleled activity in infrastructure development and economic diversity.
“It gives Atkins the opportunity to contribute to the transfer of skills to their Saudi employees and the promotion of home-grown talent,” he said.
He said the partnership reflected the opportunities in the market offered by the capital programs which he described as “huge,” but also the need for any company doing business in the Kingdom to transfer skills and train young Saudis that was “very much His Majesty’s vision.”
Mohamed Harasani was upbeat at the official announcement.
He said he was delighted to be part of Atkins in the Kingdom because of the sheer diversity of skills and expertise the partnership offered was unrivalled in the marketplace.
“Partnering Atkins made a lot of sense, because we have many infrastructure programs and mega-projects. His majesty’s vision extends over years and this new partnership helps us deliver and importantly, perform,” he said.
Richard Barrett, Atkins’ regional managing director in the Middle East, thought the registration predicated an exciting new era for Atkins saying that not only was Saudi Arabia the GCC’s largest economy, its infrastructure investment program is unparalleled anywhere in the world.
“We will very much target the infrastructure side whether airports, rail or highways and we have a very strong reputation in housing and building, which we are well known for in the UAE and we are already involved in project and planning work in Riyadh and Makkah which we see as a significant part of our plans.”
Commenting on an apparent sea-change in contracting in the Kingdom, Nassib Al Sibassi, Atkins general manager in Saudi Arabia said that local challenges not only involved the sheer size of the projects and the country, but a new focus on the time-frame for delivery.
“It will be a challenge to perform to the high quality that we want in the time frame that is required,” he said. “The government was becoming extremely serious about delivery. In the past they were a little lenient and some projects were much delayed.
“But now they are exerting a lot of pressure to ensure delivery,” he said.
He noted one Jeddah project where a daily progress report to the authorities was mandated.
“This has never happened before,” he said.
Barret said had formed a partnership with the French company Systeme to operating as NAAA “to explore nuclear opportunities” in the Kingdom.
“We are encouraged by the report last week that the Kingdom is going ahead with 16 reactors in the next few years, so there is a program there on the power side that we are interested in as well.”
