JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia is planning to create SAR225 billion (USD60 billion) worth of investment opportunities in the desalination sector in the coming five years. Through these opportunities, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) aims at partnering with the private sector in establishing future stations to increase the desalination production average to around 8.8 million cubic meter of water in the upcoming 15 years to meet the increasing demand of water.
Relevant parties have high hopes regarding the “Water Investment Forum” which is scheduled to be held on November 27-28 in Riyadh. Elite of experts and companies will take part in the forum which is expected to urge the private sector to invest in water sector.
These projects will increase job opportunities in Saudi cities, especially in the technical field—they go along with the Saudi Vision 2030 to boost the Saudi economy. This approach will also permit emerging and medium companies to provide their water transportation services to huge firms. Engineer Mansour al-Zanidi from SWCC said that the corporation is considering a number of promising opportunities to be launched in the private sector in line with Saudi Vision 2030.
Zanidi added that the upcoming forum aims at encouraging investment and partnership with the private sector in the water sector in addition to exchanging visions and suggestions between public institutions and regional and international companies. Saudi Arabia is considered to be the greatest producer of freshwater in the world. It also has the biggest desalination station in Ras Al-Khair with production of up to 1.025 million cubic meters of fresh water per day, 2,4000 megawatt of electricity and investments of SAR23 billion (USD6.1 billion).
