KAEC ranks as world’s largest privately-funded new city

The King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) ranks today as the world’s largest privately-funded new city, which has signed contracts worth SR1.6 billion with developers and service providers. The city is expanding with several projects, that will go a long way in addressing the needs of housing, businesses as well as industries and entrepreneurs.
“KAEC is continuing to grow and our development plan remains firmly on track,” said Fahd Al-Rasheed, KAEC’s managing director. 
“Our status as a privately-funded development has been an important factor in our performance and our strong cash position has allowed us to continue to invest steadily across our activities toward achieving KAEC sustainable development,” he added.
Al-Rasheed pointed out that the value of the projects under implementation in KAEC is worth more than SR6 billion and that does not include the implementation of contracts in the King Abdullah Port and industrial and commercial companies’ investments in the city.” 
In 2016 alone, KAEC signed contracts with developers and service providers covering the full range of the city’s operations.
Approximately 30 percent of the total volume of contracts is for developments in the Industrial Valley and another 40 percent is for residential developments inside the KAEC. A total of 88 percent of contracts were signed with Saudi-based firms. The announced contracts do not include contracts and agreements with companies that have investments in KAEC.
A press statement released by the KAEC said that “the city has registered more than 2,700 vendors to work on the development of city since 2007 and most of the vendors are national companies and organizations. The city, situated on the west coast of the Kingdom, covers an area of 181 sq. km of land, approximately the size of Washington DC. KAEC comprises King Abdullah Port, the Coastal Communities residential districts, the Haramain Railway district and the Industrial Valley.” 
The KAEC is located along the coast of the Red Sea, around 100 kilometers north of Jeddah. The city is being built by Emaar Properties. 
This city, along with another five economic cities, is part of an ambitious program to place Saudi Arabia among the world’s top 10 competitive investment destinations by Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA).

Source: Arab News