AFP, Ras Al Khair :
In the desert, far from the skyscrapers and busy streets of its big cities, oil-dependent Saudi Arabia is looking to build its future on two other natural resources.Phosphate minerals, used to produce fertiliser, and bauxite, the chief ore in making aluminium, are at the core of an effort to make mining a pillar of a diversified Saudi economy.
About 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jubail on Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Coast, the Ras Al Khair Industrial City has risen from the barren sands of the desert over the last eight years.
After an investment of nearly $35 billion, the project will be officially inaugurated by Saudi King Salman next week-a symbol of how the world’s largest oil exporter seeks to lessen its reliance on petroleum. “This place we are in did not exist in 2007,” Khalid Al-Mudaifer, CEO of Saudi mining company Ma’aden, told AFP during a government-organised rare visit by foreign journalists to the site.
“There was nobody at all, other than a good number of camels.” Saudi Arabia-the world’s largest oil exporter-has seen its revenues hit hard by the fall in global oil prices by more than half since 2014. In April the kingdom announced a wide-ranging reform plan, Vision 2030, that seeks to diversify the economy by promoting a wider variety of private industries and businesses employing more Saudis. With reserves including phosphate, bauxite, copper and uranium, Saudi Arabia is rich in minerals but the Vision plan noted that the mining sector “has yet to meet expectations”.
The government sees mining as the eventual third pillar of its economy after petroleum and petrochemicals.
It wants the sector to contribute 97 billion riyals ($26 billion) to Gross Domestic Product by 2020, roughly double the current proportion. The scale of Vision 2030 has raised doubts over whether it can all be achieved but officials say Ras Al Khair is helping diversification.
In the desert, far from the skyscrapers and busy streets of its big cities, oil-dependent Saudi Arabia is looking to build its future on two other natural resources.Phosphate minerals, used to produce fertiliser, and bauxite, the chief ore in making aluminium, are at the core of an effort to make mining a pillar of a diversified Saudi economy.
About 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jubail on Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Coast, the Ras Al Khair Industrial City has risen from the barren sands of the desert over the last eight years.
After an investment of nearly $35 billion, the project will be officially inaugurated by Saudi King Salman next week-a symbol of how the world’s largest oil exporter seeks to lessen its reliance on petroleum. “This place we are in did not exist in 2007,” Khalid Al-Mudaifer, CEO of Saudi mining company Ma’aden, told AFP during a government-organised rare visit by foreign journalists to the site.
“There was nobody at all, other than a good number of camels.” Saudi Arabia-the world’s largest oil exporter-has seen its revenues hit hard by the fall in global oil prices by more than half since 2014. In April the kingdom announced a wide-ranging reform plan, Vision 2030, that seeks to diversify the economy by promoting a wider variety of private industries and businesses employing more Saudis. With reserves including phosphate, bauxite, copper and uranium, Saudi Arabia is rich in minerals but the Vision plan noted that the mining sector “has yet to meet expectations”.
The government sees mining as the eventual third pillar of its economy after petroleum and petrochemicals.
It wants the sector to contribute 97 billion riyals ($26 billion) to Gross Domestic Product by 2020, roughly double the current proportion. The scale of Vision 2030 has raised doubts over whether it can all be achieved but officials say Ras Al Khair is helping diversification.
