SCBC Team – Riyadh
The Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heralded the imminent launch of a strategy to develop the capital, Riyadh, as part of its plans to diversify sources of income and grow the economy, stressing that this strategy will be ambitious and positively surprise the Saudis and the world.
This came during an interview with His Highness, the Crown Prince, with Senator Matteo Renzi, former Italian Prime Minister and member of the Board of Trustees of the Future Investment Initiative Foundation, on the sidelines of His Highness’s participation in the fourth session of the Future Investment Initiative in a dialogue session entitled “The Future of Riyadh,” which His Highness started by pointing out that real development It starts with cities, whether in industry or innovation, in education, in-services, or in tourism and other sectors, at a time when cities make up 85% of the world economy, adding: Undoubtedly, global economies are not based on countries, but are based on cities.
The Crown Prince affirmed that all the properties that Riyadh possesses give the enablers to create jobs, create growth in the economy, create investments and create many opportunities, pointing at the same time to the wonderful infrastructure that Riyadh has become due to what the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz has done in the matter of More than 55 years of his management and planning for the city of Riyadh – referring to his previous term as Prince of Riyadh – to constitute approximately 50% of the non-oil economy in the Kingdom, and is characterized by the fact that the cost of job creation in it is 30% less than the rest of the cities of the Kingdom, and that the cost of developing structures Infrastructure and real estate development are 29% less than the rest of the country.
His Highness explained the features of the “Riyadh Strategy” by revealing some of its targets, saying: “We aim for Riyadh to be one of the ten largest economic cities in the world, today it is number forty, one of the forty largest economies in the world as a city. We aim in Riyadh to reach from 7.5 million people to Between 15 and 20 million people in 2030. “
The goals announced by the Crown Prince included planning to establish a green Riyadh program to afforest millions of trees in the city, which reduces the temperature as well as the level of dust. Better life in it, in addition to environmental projects in the Kingdom that will be announced later. “