Ashraf AboArafe
The Minister of Transport and Logistics Services, Engineer Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, confirmed that there are currently 22 investment opportunities, the most prominent of which is the preparation of 4 regional airports to be offered to the private sector.
He added, during his participation in the first session of the Municipal Investment Forum “Foras”, which dealt with “the role of investment in the development of Saudi cities”, that the national strategy for transport and logistics depends in its content on establishing a reliable national carrier in developing the sector and increasing financial returns.
With the diversification of investment opportunities, including huge investments exceeding 600 billion riyals, and to implement these investments, it is necessary to take advantage of financing sources, expand partnership with the private sector, and enable business growth.
And he indicated that one of these partnerships was the opening of Prince Muhammad bin Abdulaziz Airport in Madinah, which is the first airport in the Kingdom to be established entirely by the private sector, in addition to another partnership to operate a number of ports over a period of thirty years.
He explained that the logistics areas are considered to have a good economic return, and in the past two years agreements were signed to establish 6 logistics areas in the ports, including the integrated logistics area in the Riyadh region, and 59 logistics areas distributed in all regions of the Kingdom, of which 22 areas have been implemented, in addition to the seven logistical areas within the land bridge project that connects the west of the Kingdom with its east and is receiving great attention from the wise leadership, where work has been done with an alliance led by a major Chinese company and the participation of 11 international companies to implement the project.
Al-Jasser pointed out that the ministry is working in an advanced stage on establishing the Saudi Road Code with the aim of raising the road quality index, to be a technical reference for the authorities responsible for roads at all levels.
