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Saudi Arabia Planning $500 Billion Megacity and Business Zone

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 25 2017, @09:54AM   
from the takes-money-to-make-money dept.

takyon writes:

Saudi Arabia is planning to build a new $500+ billion city on the coast of the Red Sea. The zone will be connected to Jordan by land and Egypt by a bridge across the Red Sea. SoftBank's Vision Fund will buy a stake in the state-owned Saudi Electricity Co., which will power the city using clean energy. The project is called NEOM:

Saudi Arabia has unveiled plans to build a new city and business zone - a project that will be backed up by more than $500bn (£381bn) in investment.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says the 26,500 sq km (10,232 sq mile) NEOM zone will be developed in the north-west, extending to Egypt and Jordan.

It will focus on nine sectors including food technology and, energy and water.

The crown prince has been leading a drive to move Saudi Arabia away from its dependence on oil revenues.

In August, the Gulf kingdom launched a massive tourism development project to turn 50 islands and other sites on the Red Sea into luxury resorts.

However, the extremely ambitious nature of Mohammed bin Salman's vision is sure to raise questions about how realistic it is, the BBC's economics correspondent Andrew Walker says.

What is "NEOM"? "Neo" (Latin for "new") + "Mostaqbal" (Arabic for "future").

Also at Bloomberg (alternate editorial) and Reuters.

Related: SoftBank's $80-100 Billion "Vision Fund" Takes Shape
SoftBank May Sell 25% of ARM to Vision Fund; Chairman Meets With Saudi King

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Original Submission

• Re:But will they have plumbing? Re:But will they have plumbing? (Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:56PM (2 children)

  by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:56PM (#587348) Journal

  Luckily the "they" you are talking about are an entirely different "they" to the ones in the article. The Burj Kalifa is in Dubai, UAE. The article is about a project in the neighbouring country of Saudi Arabia.

  Something worth adding to this discussion is the fact that this economic revolution will be accompanied by a cultural one: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/i-will-return-saudi-arabia-moderate-islam-crown-prince [theguardian.com]
  Hopefully this will mean better rights for women, less beheadings and torture, less fundamentalism. They've already given women the right to drive. It may seem like a small thing, but it's a welcome first step in the right direction.

  If Saudi Arabia could sort its shit out then a lot of the problems in the middle east would get a lot easier.

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• Re:But will they have plumbing? (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:48PM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:48PM (#587392) Journal

  Saudi Arabia wants to return to ‘moderate Islam.’ Skeptics say it’s a marketing ploy. [washingtonpost.com] (archive [archive.is])

  Madawi Al-Rasheed, a Middle East scholar at the London School of Economics, argued in an email that Saudi Arabia was not one of the many countries where moderate Islam turned ultraconservative, but was instead an exception. It is a “unique case of radical religion becoming the official religion of the state and its legitimacy narrative,” said Rasheed, who cautioned that the Saudi leadership imprisoned clerics who had attempted to “offer reinterpretations of Islamic text, for example how Islam and democracy are compatible.”

  Rasheed questioned whether the announced religious reforms would really be implemented. “The announcements are definitely geared to attract investors and create a feel good factor for a kingdom that had a very bad reputation,” she said.

  “It is unclear how a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia would look like, but I think what Mohammed bin Salman is trying to mainly achieve is to send out a PR message that he is a Western ally in the fight against terrorism and that he stands for a modern future,” said Sebastian Sons, an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on Saudi Arabia.

  Bin Salman, 32, has attempted to position himself as a favorite for the kingdom’s younger citizens, who are less religious than older generations and are facing disproportionately high unemployment rates.

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  [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

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• Re:But will they have plumbing? (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 25 2017, @11:58PM

  by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday October 25 2017, @11:58PM (#587621)

  this economic revolution will be accompanied by a cultural one:

  I will believe that when I see it.

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