Saudi Arabia withdraws from its ambitions regarding the Neom project

Reports indicate that Saudi Arabia has withdrawn from some of its ambitions regarding the “Neom” urban project.

According to the report of West Asia Eye, quoted by Bloomberg, this project includes the linear city of “Line”, which Saudi Arabia had previously announced will have a population of about 1.5 million by 2030. However, the Saudi authorities now expect only 300,000 people to be resettled in the said city.

Also, it was said earlier that Line city will be 170 km long after the completion of the project, but now only 2.4 km of this city is expected to be built by 2030.

According to a document seen by Bloomberg, due to the slowness of the project, one of the contractors has started laying off some of the workers. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances most of the plan, has yet to approve its 2024 budget for Neom, the sources added. The report notes that the huge investment for Neom, which is worth thousands of billions of dollars in total, is starting to raise concerns at home.

“Line” city is a part of “Neom” big project. The line is supposed to be built linearly from the Red Sea to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. In general, the population of 9 million people is considered to live in this city, which constitutes 25% of the current population of Saudi Arabia.

Arabia says the power line will be entirely powered by renewable energy and will be monitored by artificial intelligence.