Saudi Arabia has ramped up investments in infrastructure services, mainly water projects in Makkah and other holy sites. The move coincided with the recently concluded haj season, which saw close to 2.5 million pilgrims.

Saudi Arabia spends more than SAR2 billion ($530 million) on maintaining Makkah alone, making this the Kingdom’s largest environmental maintenance program.

Six mega water projects in Makkah and other holy sites, worth over SAR3.1 billion, were announced towards the end of July, to be carried out by the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), National Water Company (NWC) and Saudi Water Partnerships Company (SWPC).

Saudi Gazette reports that one of the projects is the construction of a pipeline to carry treated water from the Desalination Plant in Al-Shuaibah to Makkah and the holy sites, at a total cost exceeding SAR875 million; another project is the second phase of Al-Shuaibah Desalination Plant, which has a capacity of 250,000 cubic meters per day, at a cost of over SAR1.175 billion. 

Additional water services projects include water networks, connections to homes, strategic reservoirs and sanitary drainage networks and connections in several districts of Makkah and the holy sites, all adding up to a cost of over SAR600 million.

The kingdom’s National Water Company has finalised a total of 91 water and environmental projects – waste water recycling and reuse - during the first half of 2019, with a total value of SAR 3.2 billion. These projects will focus on developing water treatment plants, household interconnections, water networks and strategic storage facilities.

(Reporting by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@refinitiv.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)

© ZAWYA 2019