The industrial cities development projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia within the past two years alone have increased the total size of the industrial cities from 42.5 million square meters to 71 million square meters - a 67 percent increase on the total of the previous 40 years' developments, Dr. Tawfig bin Fawzan Alrabiah, director general of Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) said. In 2009, Modon established four new industrial cities: Jeddah Second, Al-Kharj, Ar'ar and Jazan. Further, in the beginning of 2010, Modon initiated the establishment of Sudair Industrial City, which is the Kingdom's Second in the list of 2010 “Top Projects”, along with the Dammam Second expansion. Modon's achievements in the establishment and development of new industrial cities reflects the Authority's response to increased requests for industrial lands as a result of its on-going pursuance of the National Industrial Strategy. Modon's success with the industrial cities projects also entailed establishing new services and utilities. The Authority's construction of new infrastructures is based on the BOT (build, operate, transfer) system - an accepted means of securing private-sector involvement in infrastructure projects. These projects include the following: high-speed connectivity in the cities; district cooling projects; water networks and water treatment; security services; commercial complex projects and residential compounds projects; plus the current industrial cities infrastructure rehabilitation projects. As a result of its development projects, Modon is continuing to receive investor applications and land requests. Moreover, its ongoing developments offer a variety of options to local, foreign and GCC investors to invest in a range of opportunities in the industrial, commercial, residential or service sectors. Modon is currently supervising 18 industrial cities (with investments of over SR250 billion) within the Kingdom. More than 300,000 workers are employed in these industrial cities, which also include some 3,000 factories - some 60 percent of the factories within the Kingdom.
