Malaysian developer MMC Corporation and Saudi Bin Ladin Group have been awarded the rights to develop and manage the US $30 billion (SR112 billion) Jizan Economic City (JEC).
Located 725km south of Jeddah by the Red Sea, JEC will be a fully integrated and self-contained development, which will comprise industrial and non-industrial zones on a site measuring approximately 117km2.
JEC will be Saudi Arabia’s fourth Economic City to be launched after the Economic Cities of King Abdullah, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Mousaed and Madinah, and will be implemented over 30 years.
The investment cost for the various projects within the industrial zones is estimated at around $17 billion.
“The new city’s industrial zone, representing more than two-thirds of the project, will accommodate a port, an aluminium smelter, a steel processing plant, an oil refinery, a copper processing plant, as well as fisheries and agro-based industries,” said Feizal Ali, group chief executive, MMC.
“It will also include a power and desalination plant to support the industries, which will have an eventual capacity to generate 4,000mW of electricity.
Saudi Arabia’s economic cities are part of the kingdom’s economic diversification plan and are aimed at attracting foreign investment into non-oil based industries.
The decision to launch the fourth Economic City in Jizan came about after a study of the region’s industrial prospects and its strategic location.
Jizan has rich deposits of limestone, dolomite, marble, basalt, gypsum and silica, which will support the petrochemical, metal processing, silicon processing, agro and biotechnology industries.
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