Examination of Saudi Arabia’s fast-changing development projects, weekday mornings on ACCESS MIDDLE EAST. The show airs between 12:00 and 13:00 SIN/HK and 06:00 to 07:00 CET, providing viewers with timely updates on the region’s economic strategies.
Saudi Arabia has kicked off an ambitious path in this direction with its Vision 2030 initiative. This plan lays out a series of giga-projects—massive public works projects—to help diversify the economy and wean it off its dependency on oil revenues. Faisal Durrani, the Head of Research, MENA at Knight Frank, emphasizes that these projects represent a central pillar in the nation’s developmental framework.
Despite the grand scale of investments in these initiatives, Durrani highlights that the infrastructure necessary to support such ambitious projects is still catching up. At the same time, the rapid development, by almost any standard, has presented some very serious challenges. Our current infrastructure has a hard enough time accommodating these large scale builds. This lag will result in missed opportunities to greatly increase the overall effectiveness and long-term sustainability of the giga-projects.
Durrani goes into more detail on these often-murky contexts behind such big, expensive projects. Capacity aside, he says that the Saudi government has made a tremendous investment in these projects. Many logistical, regulatory, and environmental hurdles still persist. Thoughtful coordination today between federal, state, regional, and local governments along with private sector partners is essential to address these challenges.
The Saudi government is taking these infrastructural hurdles head-on. They are taking smart steps to make sure that the goodness of the giga-projects gets them more momentum. This includes enhancing regulatory frameworks, investing in transportation networks, and fostering partnerships with international firms that possess expertise in large-scale construction and development.
Durrani argues that even with these hurdles, the vision of the Saudi government to continue with these giga-projects remains on track. Most importantly, he highlights that we need to keep investing and remain committed long term. This will be especially important for reaching the ambitious targets set in Vision 2030.