Saudi Arabia wants to build a huge city

Saudi Arabia wants to become less dependent on oil. This has been known since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman proclaimed "Vision 2030" five years ago. A far-reaching restructuring of the economy. Away from oil, towards modernity. The flagship project of "Vision 2030" is called Neom. A huge planned city that Saudi Arabia wants to build in the west of the country, in close proximity to Egypt, Israel and Jordan. A kind of Arab Silicon Valley. It is the "attempt to establish Saudi Arabia as the technology center in the region," says Sebastian Sons from the Carpo research institute in the ntv podcast "Learned again". Cost: $ 500 billion. "That is very ambitious, even by Saudi standards." Gigantic things become clear just by looking at the size of the planned giant city: 26,500 square kilometers. That is bigger than Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, almost as big as Belgium. "A completely new city for around one million people is to be built on the Red Sea coast by 2030, virtually out of nowhere." One airport is already ready. Neom Bay Airport still looks a bit lost in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of desert. So far, little more than "a royal amusement park" has been built, writes the "Wirtschaftswoche" with reference to current satellite images. According to this, the plant was rammed out of the desert sand within a few months in 2018. Next door there would be a camp for security guards and accommodation for workers as well as vacation resorts. So there's not much to see of Neom yet, but one day the giant city will become the "epitome of modern urbanity," says Saudi Arabia expert Sons. "The vision is the city of the 21st century that is in harmony with nature and that makes the connection between private and work life as pleasant as possible."