Saudi Arabia has launched a new 98 billion Saudi riyals ($26 billion) seaside residential project in the Eastern port of Dammam spread around an area of around 32 million square metres (sqm), the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Saud bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz, the Eastern Province governor, on Monday inaugurated the ‘New Dammam’ project, developed by Adel real estate company in partnership with Alinma company, an investment arm of the Saudi Alinma Bank.

The project includes eight residential neighbourhoods containing 15,791 housing plots, 5,210 investment plots, and 1,389 commercial plots, in addition to 322 waterfront palaces, 49 parks, and a number of diverse recreational destinations, according to Mazen Baghdadi, Alinma’s CEO.

He said the project directly overlooks the waterfront and is situated at the crossroads of major highways and roads in the city.

Baghdadi said he expects the project to create over 80,000 jobs and attract more than 180,000 residents when it is completed.

The project also comprises waterways exceeding 5 million sqm, marine canals that enhance the urban and tourism character of the development, and extensive green spaces exceeding 500,000 sqm, he added.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has been locked in a drive to promote tourism and build houses to expand citizens’ ownership.

The Kingdom said last year that it had allocated SAR220 billion ($58 billion) for projects to build hundreds of thousands of houses for its citizens by 2030.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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