The world can keep revolving with its churning rumor mills and conjectures but nothing will stop Saudi Arabia’s futuristic Neom City, a $1.5 trillion dream of its visionary crown prince MBS from coming true. Last month, Neom was surrounded by news of scaling back, a sheer disappointment for fans who were waiting for this fantasy world to come to fruition. The onset of May brings a ray of hope as Saudi Arabia says all Neom megaprojects will go ahead as planned. This means not only will the projects announced earliest like The Line, Sindalah, Trojena, and Oxagon see the light of day but also the ones announced much later.
Saudi Economy Minister Faisal Al Ibrahim told CNBC in Riyadh, ‘All projects are moving full steam ahead. We set out to do something unprecedented, and we are doing something unprecedented; we will deliver something that’s unprecedented.’ The Line, a 170 km horizontal skyscraper, is one of the highlights of Neom City and was subject to speculation about scaling back. It was rumored that instead of stretching 105 miles across the desert by 2030, The Line would be reduced to just 1.5 miles.
The plan to accommodate 1.5 million people living in The Line by 2030 was completely overturned; now, only 300,000 will be accommodated, according to a report from Bloomberg. Far from scaling back, Al Ibrahim affirmed that all projects within Neom are moving ahead. ‘These projects will be delivered to their full scale in a manner that suits the priorities and needs of the projects, the returns from these projects, and their economic impact,’ Al Ibrahim stated. ‘Keep in mind that these sectors didn’t exist in the past. They’re being built from scratch and require significant investment, with the government and the sovereign wealth fund going all in,’ he added.
To secure funds and boost the confidence of the international community, Neom City hosted representatives from 52 global financial institutions, providing them with a firsthand experience of the ongoing progress across key projects. The attendees included dignitaries from 24 international banks from Germany, Spain, France, England, the United States, China, Japan, and South Korea. The event also featured at least 13 regional banks from Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE, as well as 15 financial institutions from Saudi Arabia itself.”
Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO, NEOM, said, “We were pleased to host guests from some of the world’s leading financial institutions in NEOM recently to discuss collaborative avenues. NEOM is open for business and we welcome all interested parties to be part of our continued success.”
