Crossroads Arabia linked to the current Economist cover story on the Gulf economies, including some context and scale to Saudi Arabia's efforts to building new "cities:"
Another response is to foster new industries other than oil, which employs too few, and construction, which pays too little. Saudi Arabia has made progress privatising telecoms, liberalising airlines and opening up financial services. It is also pinning great hopes on its economic cities, of which KAEC is but one of six. The others include a Knowledge City near the holy city of Medina; a city based on steel, copper, aluminium and other heavy industries in Jizan; and a fourth that will nurture agri-business in Hail, which produces 90% of the country's corn and a third of its potatoes. All told, the cities are supposed to create 1.3m jobs by 2020.
Comments