Saudi giga-projects are going local with new focus

• Giga-projects gaining local focus
• Providing for Saudi families
• Prices may still be too high for locals

A nationalist sensitivity towards the leadership and aims of Saudi Arabia’s massive giga-projects is slowly taking hold, as foreign CEOs are swapped out for locals and the government makes a stronger push on housing for Saudi citizens. 

Last month, the King Abdullah Financial District replaced its Indian CEO Guatam Sashiittal with Mohammed Alsudairy – head of the Saudi investment division of KAFD’s owner the Public Investment Fund – as acting CEO. 

In April, the UK’s David Grover was forced out of the housing giga-project developer Roshn – leading to a legal dispute moving through Saudi courts over claims of wrongful dismissal and unpaid bonuses and performance payments. 

In both cases, the PIF-owned companies had achieved their first phase of operations as the country helter-skelters towards a 2030 deadline to finalise key elements of Saudi Arabia’s $1.25 trillion reform plans, the biggest construction project in the world. 

Qiddiya Investment Company

Sensitivity towards the intended audience for Saudi Arabia’s development plan was on display at a major real estate exhibition and forum in Riyadh this week. 

The largest display by far was the National Housing Company’s affordable housing communities for ordinary Saudis, while the major PIF companies with large pavilions seemed to stress their residential offerings for locals rather than the grand touristic elements.

Mohammad Albuty, CEO of the NHC, told the forum that 63 percent of Saudis now own their own homes, close to the government target of 70 percent ownership by 2030.

The Qiddiya sports and entertainment city – one of the most foreigner-facing of all the projects and marketed as an “Arabian Disneyland” – had no presence at the exhibition at all. 

Hani Alharbi, residential sales advisor at the Neom winter resort of Trojena, made an explicitly nationalist pitch for Saudis to take up the first batch of property for the ultra-rich coming on line in early 2025 – even though Neom is very specifically branded as a territory carved out of Saudi Arabia’s north-west corner that is aimed at citizens of the world. 

“So many Saudis have second homes in Dubai, London and elsewhere, but now we have something we can show off and we can provide for Saudis and Saudi families, it’s more a product for them,” he told the Cityscape Global forum. 

Wam

There have been other signs of concern to lay down limits to the huge social and economic changes taking place since the Vision 2030 reform project was launched in 2016. 

In February, King Salman issued a decree requiring ministers and senior officials to wear gold-rimmed black robes at work and formal events. And in April a further decree obliged all Saudi government employees to wear the traditional white robes and headdress.

While the 2022 census showed nearly 60 percent of the 32 million population are Saudi nationals, there has been an influx of tourists after the government launched an e-visa system in 2019. 

More than 27 million people visited in 2023, changing the face of what was only a decade ago a highly conservative, closed society.  

The foreign presence has been noticeable at senior levels of the giga-projects. Many of the CEOs and leaders are British, American and other Western nationals. 

They are always effusive in their praise of Saudi Arabia’s reforming energy when speaking at major events. 

• Minister trumpets Saudi Arabia’s $168bn housing push
• Neom replaces CEO in bid to move past negative headlines
• Neom ‘uses one fifth of world’s steel’

“The energy of this place is off the scale and other cities around the world could learn from that,” Jayne McGivern, the British CEO of Sports Boulevard Foundation, said at Cityscape Global on Wednesday in a rare public appearance to discuss a 35 km-long linear district of Riyadh known as Sports Boulevard, which is under construction. 

A Saudi intellectual, speaking on condition of anonymity, said people had begun to take notice of how many government projects are being placed in the hands of Westerners, including in the heritage and cultural sphere where local knowledge is key. 

“The ideas are promising and beautiful but having Western leaders in charge transfers it into a European thing, with some touches to make a fake authenticity,” the person said, adding that many public events were priced too high for ordinary Saudis.