The Ministry of Housing will build more than 4,000 new housing units across the Kingdom. The ministry's Development Housing initiative signed an agreement with Katerra, a leading design and technology-driven global construction company, to build 4,101 individual housing units in various regions of the country for the beneficiaries of the initiative in line with the Kingdom's vision objectives. The signing took place in the presence of Minister of Housing Majed Bin Abdullah Al-Hogail and Ziyad Al-Ashaikh, partner head of Softbank SBIA, Saudi Arabia. The agreement was signed by Ash Bhardwaj, Katerra president for Asia and Middle East. A Silicon Valley construction start-up, Katerra has grown rapidly since 2015. Today, the company has over 5,000 employees, six operational factories and over 700 projects in progress across America and India. Backed by Soft Bank's Vision Fund, Katerra makes its foray in the Saudi market, introducing advanced construction technology to support the country's infrastructure plan outlined in Vision 2030. Katerra has strong business plans to rapidly expand its operations in the Saudi market and revolutionize its construction sector by introducing advanced global practices. The Development Housing initiative is a continuation of a series of agreements to build housing units in a number of cities and governorates of the Kingdom. The 4,101 housing units will be built in Makkah, Madinah, Baha, Jouf and Qassim regions. The Makkah region will get a major portion of the contract with 2,482 housing units, followed by Madinah with 1,043 housing units. The remaining units will be shared by Baha (140), Jouf (191) and Qassim (245). The Development Housing initiative is one of the programs that come as part of Vision 2030. It aims to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged families in the Kingdom and to enable them to own their homes or utilize them according to their needs and financial capabilities. Katerra is committed to support the initiative and use its unique technology to bring better and faster homes to families in the Kingdom. — SG
