‘New city’ to come up at Taif with 10K houses, varsity, airport

Agencies

October 2, 2017

Jeddah, Oct 2: Plans were approved on Sunday for a $3 billion “new city” at Taif, with more than 10,000 homes, a culture and heritage tourist center, technology and industry parks, a university and an airport.

The project will occupy nearly 1,250 square kilometers on a site in the northeastern part of the existing city of Taif, with the tourist center an expansion of the popular Souq Okaz destination.

An infrastructure contract has already been signed for the first phase of a three-stage project to build a residential suburb of more than 10,000 homes. The $160 million development over 12 million square meters is the biggest in Makkah Region.

The General Authority for Civil Aviation has signed a contract to develop and operate the new Taif International Airport with a group of companies including Asiad, the Contractors Association Co. and Munich Airports Co.

The airport will be built on a 48 million square meter site 40km from Taif and 117km from Makkah. It will cost $800 million and is expected to be operational by 2020.

The new Souk Okaz City, in addition to its culture and heritage tourist attractions, will also have 1,250 hotel rooms and 130 new homes. It is being supervised by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, with participation from the private sector, and will cost almost $1 billion.

The tourism project will create 4,400 jobs, is expected to attract more than 260,000 visitors a year and will contribute about $80 million a year to the the Kingdom’s GDP.

A consortium of global companies has been selected to design a business park called the Oasis of Technology, a joint venture between King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology and the Morganti Group.

The 35 million square meter site will accommodate projects to assemble and manufacture Antonov aircraft, make solar panels and develop solar energy.

A new Industrial City, the first in Taif Province, will be built on an 11 million square meter site 55km from the city center and 29km from the airport.

The $32 million first phase will include light, medium and heavy industries, and a vocational training center.

The new university will be built at Sysid National Park. It is composed of 16 separate projects over an area of 16 million square meters, at a cost of $530 million.

King Salman was briefed on the new projects at Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah on Sunday by Dr. Saad Mohammed Mariq, adviser to the governor of Makkah.

The king said the aim was to serve Saudi citizens and the homeland.

“Our doors, our phones, and our ears are open for every citizen,” he said.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

Israeli forces invade southwestern Syria, set up checkpoint in Quneitra

News Network

November 24,2025

Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

Comments