King Abdullah Economic City
The King Abdullah Economic City ( KAEC ; Arabic مدينة الملك عبد الله اللإقتصادية, DMG Madīnat al-Malik ʿAbd Allāh al-Iqtiṣādīya , in German about "King Abdullah Economic City") is a city that is under construction and is expected to grow to a city of millions in Saudi Arabia by 2030 . The urban development KAEC is a core element of the "Vision 2030" for Saudi Arabia after the era of oil .
The urban development project was presented to the public in 2005. King Abdullah ibn Abd al-Aziz laid the foundation stone for the planned city that bears his name on December 20, 2005. The project is led by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA). The Dubai developer Emaar Properties and the Saudi Binladin Group are involved in the construction.
geography
The city is located between the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina on the Red Sea and about 125 km north of the economic center of Jeddah and has a total area of 168 km² (roughly equivalent to the urban area of Braunschweig ).
Urban development project
In addition to new industrial facilities and extensive housing developments, large buildings and high skyscrapers are planned , which will shape the appearance of Saudi Arabia and the entire Middle East. The project is expected to cost around 110 billion Saudi riyals (around 22 billion euros ). A little further south, near the town of Thuwal, the academic component of the region, the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) has already been founded and built. It started operations in autumn 2009 on a 36 km² campus with an attached mangrove reserve.
The new city was planned for 2 million inhabitants and another 1.8 million in the agglomeration . It also serves as an urgently needed catchment basin for the around 100,000 mostly well-educated young Saudis who have not yet been accepted into the labor market. It is mainly young people who work in the economy that should settle here. The city is to be developed through an international seaport, an airport and railway lines to the centers of the country; Road connections already exist in all directions, further expansion is planned.
Since the city started operating in 2013, around 8,000 residents have settled in the area by the beginning of 2017, and by 2020, 50,000 residents are expected to live and work in KAEC. From this threshold, the city's growth should be self-sustaining and in the medium term the infrastructure should be designed for 2 million inhabitants.
From a social point of view, KAEC is also planned as a pilot project; unlike in the rest of Saudi Arabia, women and men work together in the city's companies and share offices.
Economy and Infrastructure
The deep-water harbor King Abdullah Port , which was built in three years, went into operation at the end of 2013 and is an economic focus of the city. In 2017, 1,500 people were already employed in the port, 820 ships called at the port (14% more than in the previous year) and 1.7 million standard containers were handled. The strategic importance of the port results from its location on the most important sea trade route between Europe, Asia and Africa near the Suez Canal. It is also important that the port is on the shipping route in the Red Sea between the two pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina , which are visited by almost 20 million pilgrims every year.
Companies from the trade and light industry settle in the city's industrial areas. Companies from the energy industry will not be admitted to KAEC, the city should develop completely without reference to oil and natural gas. An international school and a university of applied sciences with an economic focus were set up to promote the location.
Tourism is another factor in urban development, with 500,000 visitors to the city in 2017.
Web links
- Project website (English)
- Saudi Arabia: New megacity planned on the Red Sea . Wikinews , December 24, 2005
Individual evidence
- ^ King Abdullah Port a success story in PPP , Saudi Gazette, January 15, 2018.
- ↑ Virginia Kirst, Eine Fata Morgana, King Abdullah Economic City , Balance Sheet, March 2018.
Coordinates: 22 ° 24 ' N , 39 ° 5' E