SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 25 2017, @03:20PM (3 children)
Free burka and caning for each applicant? No thanks.
Saudi Arabia would do better to cover their entire country in solar farms and export the energy, if they want to diversify their economy away from oil.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday October 25 2017, @05:23PM (2 children)
They indicate that religious laws will be relaxed within this city. It also seems to be primarily for Saudi Arabian residents, so your participation is not required.
Probably covered under ENERGY sector, but as I said in another comment, Saudi Arabia is trying to become a center for innovative research and technology.
They have massively increased education funding:
http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/29940/Saudi-investment-in-education-tripled-in-just-a-decade-focuses-on-enhancing-human-capital- [saudigazette.com.sa]
https://www.reuters.com/article/saudi-education/saudi-arabia-approves-21-bln-five-year-education-plan-spa-idUSL6N0O53HU20140519 [reuters.com]
It remains to be seen whether they are really on a path towards secularization:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/i-will-return-saudi-arabia-moderate-islam-crown-prince [theguardian.com]
http://archive.is/rNHTs [archive.is]
I'll go ahead and predict that we will see significant secularization in both Saudi Arabia and Iran within the next 20-30 years or so. I also think that it will happen faster in Iran. They have a youthful population and a government that is more fragile and isolated than Saudi Arabia's monarchy.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 25 2017, @05:52PM (1 child)
That is remarkably optimistic. Innovation rests on much more than money. Saudis have been coddled and spoiled for generations now by easy oil money. That is, they've had all the money in the world with which to innovate, but they haven't. Did Saudi Arabia even produce amazing cars to burn their oil? No. Did they use that wealth to crack the nut of reclaiming arable land from the desert? No. Did they figure out cheap, easy desalinization? No.
In short, in very short order to come through on a proposal like this they'd have to as a people transform themselves from spoiled brats to hard-bitten engineers like the Dutch or incredibly driven like the Japanese or South Koreans. Even then it takes decades to accomplish. Trying to start only three minutes before midnight when the oil boom turns bust is too late. They have run out of time.
Next to that whether or not they secularize is immaterial. It doesn't matter.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25 2017, @07:48PM
> Did Saudi Arabia even produce amazing cars to burn their oil?
Agree with most of your post, it may be too late for Saudi Arabia to change their culture to producing anything but oil. Personally, I'd like to see them fund a long term effort to re-tree large parts of their country, I keep hearing about struggling pilot projects that are able to reclaim small chunks of desert.
However, they do produce some amazing cars -- Saudi money is behind McLaren and other high end car companies, including some Formula 1 teams. It's true that the work is done in England (mostly) but no way England could have ever funded supercar and F1 technology to its current level.