Saudi Arabia’s Qiddiya Investment Company, backed by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, plans to award at least 10 billion riyals ($2.66bn/Dh9.79bn) worth of contracts to various companies this year to speed up the construction of a mega entertainment and sports project in the capital Riyadh.
"We've awarded well over 1bn riyals contracts so far and that figure is going to jump, may be 10 times to 10bn riyals, which will all be construction related contracts," Michael Reininger, its chief executive told The National.
The Qiddiya project includes a number of facilities for sports, arts and entertainment activities. It is being constructed on a 334 square-kilometre site close to Riyadh and part of the Saudi Vision 2030 programme that aims to diversify the economy away from oil.
“We just awarded one of the major road contracts and are receiving major contract bids for the entirety of our utility system," Mr Reininger said. “We have strings of things that are coming up between now and the end of the year.”
In total, the project, which includes American theme park Six Flags, will be home to more than 300 recreational and educational facilities. They are centred around five major themes including parks and attractions, sports and wellness, nature and the environment, arts and culture, as well as motion and mobility.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, construction at the site and work is ongoing.
“[The] schedule is still on, which is why you see this rapid escalation in the actual contracts being awarded. We are hoping to finish the project by 2023,” Mr Reininger said.
The project is being funded by the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, as well as by the government. The company plans to raise additional money through a bond or sukuk offering. The exact size of the bond offering is not disclosed.
“Ultimately there is going to be a combination of additional equity capital that is going to come from third party investors, both regional and international," Mr Reininger said. "There will also be debt that will come from the foreign debt market as well as local and regional markets that will support the overall capital.”
Saudi Arabia is undertaking a number of projects spanning various sectors including real estate, entertainment and tourism. These comprise the $500bn (Dh1.8 trillion) Neom business and industrial zone extending into Egypt and Jordan and a Red Sea project, which includes a nature reserve, diving in coral reefs and heritage sites on about 50 islands.
Tourism is expected to contribute more than 10 per cent of the kingdom’s gross domestic product by 2030 – up from 3 per cent currently – and provide one million jobs. The country recently set up a $4bn fund to develop the tourism industry.
Qiddiya will contribute “significantly” to the country’s economic growth, Mr Reininger said.
“This is going to be a significant contributor to the overall GDP in the form of revenues that are generated directly or indirectly by the project," he said. "It is also going to be the huge contributor to the economy."
Qiddiya accounts for more than 15,000 direct jobs in the first phase and 25,000 direct jobs by 2030 when the company plans to start the second phase of the construction with new hotels, clubs, food and beverage facilities, and entertainment spots.
The company aims to be profitable by 2024 following the opening of the project as revenue from tourism activity is generated.
“There are 33 million people in the kingdom and there is a huge pent up demand," Mr Reininger said. "They are young, they are switched on and have means and they want this kind of entertainment, sports and arts experiences that they haven’t been able to get before.
“And we are going to offer [this to] them at a larger scale and at a higher quality level than certainly anywhere else in the region and perhaps on par with [the] best of the best anywhere in the world“
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Manchester City (0) v Liverpool (3)
Uefa Champions League, quarter-final, second leg
Where: Etihad Stadium
When: Tuesday, 10.45pm
Live on beIN Sports HD
The Pope's itinerary
Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial
Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport
