JEDDAH: A Ministry of Housing delegation held a meeting with a Chinese delegation on Tuesday to discuss mutual cooperation.

The delegation included representatives of major developing and planning companies and was led by the deputy mayor of the Chinese province of Ningxia, Liu Qi Wei. They visited Al-Asfar site in Al-Ahsa Governorate.

The Ministry of Housing is supervising the development of that region, paving the way for the finalization of the design process.

The mayor of Al-Ahsa, Engineer Adel bin Mohammed Al-Melhem, said that the city site, to the northeast of Al-Waha, is expected to host more than 50,000 housing units that will accommodate 150,000 residents.

He said the mayoralty will allocate to the Ministry of Housing 55 million square meters, distributed among eight sites, all around Al-Ahsa.

The most important sites and activities surrounding Al-Asfar city are: Al-Ahsa National Park, the King Abdullah City for Dates, the Central Market of Al-Ahsa, the dates processing factories, recreational and tourism projects, including a multi-propose sports stadium, regional educational and health projects, and land allocated for Saudi Aramco housing project.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Housing spokesman Bandar Al-Abdulkarim said that 216,200 men and 7,734 women are eligible for housing support in Makkah.

The number of housing units in the Makkah region, which are part of the 100,000 residential units announced by the ministry earlier, reached 7,246. They will be handed over soon to their owners.

At the same time, 4,122 apartments will be built as part of the Jeddah Airport project, 2,594 as part of the Prince Fawaz project in Jeddah, and 530 villas in Qunfudah province.

Regarding real estate offices, the ministry spokesman said “the ministry will begin the electronic registering of real estate brokers. The system will be launched on a trial basis during the first quarter of 2017.”