Oil-rich Saudi Arabia plans to invest
SAR200bn (US$53.33bn) in its aviation sector over the next five years, it has been
reported.
According to Arab News, the spending is in order to meet the demands of increasing air traffic in the kingdom due to a fast-growing population and economic development.
The report did not give any specific information on how the sum would be allocated to certain projects and when, but there is currently major work ongoing in the country’s air transport industry, including the expansion of Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International
Airport and Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport.
Preliminary studies and design work for the
development and expansion of Riyadh’s airport have been completed and
construction work is due to begin November.
The improved Jeddah airport, estimated to cost
SAR27bn (US$7.19bn), should begin operations in 2014, with its capacity increased from 17m to 30m passengers annually, reported the
newspaper.
Khaled Al-Molhem, director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines, said: “About 7m people come to the Kingdom from different countries every year. The Umrah
(Islamic pilgrimage) sector is growing fast at the rate of 35 percent a year.”
He also
revealed the airline’s plan to launch the largest aircraft maintenance plant in the
Middle East at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz Airport.
“We have
already awarded the contract to a company to implement the project and the
plant will be ready by 2014,” he said.
Maz Aviation Chairman Muhammad Al-Zeer described
the kingdom’s air industry sector as the biggest in the region and said that adding
new aviation projects would require a large number of Saudi workers.
“According to our study, the Saudi aviation market
can provide 120,000 jobs during the next 10 years,” he pointed out.
Al
Zeer said that the fast expanding aviation sector in Saudi Arabia will offer 8,000
jobs to young Saudis every year, reported Arab daily Saudi
Gazette.
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