Saudi Arabia‘s economy minister says Neom’s projects will go ahead as planned following reports that plans for The Line have been scaled back.
“All projects are moving full steam ahead,” Faisal Al Ibrahim told CNBC at the World Economic Forum’s special meeting in Riyadh on Monday (29 April)
“We set out to do something unprecedented and we’re doing something unprecedented, and we will deliver something that’s unprecedented.”
He said that “for Neom, the projects, the intended scale is continuing as planned. There is no change in scale”.
‘Intended scale continuing as planned’
Al Ibrahim’s comments come after reports last month that The Line is expected to reach just a mile and a half by 2030, instead of its planned length of 105 miles.
According to Bloomberg, officials expect The Line to house fewer than 300,000 people by 2030. Initially, it was to be home to 1.5 million residents.
The purported scaling down of The Line is because Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund is yet to approve the Neom 2024 budget, Bloomberg reported.
Neom has also announced it has secured a new revolving credit facility worth 10 billion riyals ($2.67 billion) from local lenders.
Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO of Neom, said in a statement: “As Neom continues to gather pace, this new credit facility, backed by Saudi Arabia’s leading financial institutions, is a natural fit within our wider strategy for funding.
“We continue to explore a variety of funding sources as we deliver transformational infrastructure assets while supporting the wider Vision 2030 program.
“Neom is among the largest projects in the world today, and we value the partnership we have with our relationship banks in facilitating access to a range of flexible financing options as we deliver on our ambition.”
Neom is planning its debut riyal bond sale for later this year.
Images courtesy of Neom
