Saudi Arabia trying to secure urgent funds, investments for NEOM’s Line

Saudi Arabia is attempting to secure urgent funding for its NEOM megacity project, amid its drastic scale-down in comparison to previous ambitious goals.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Saudi authorities cut short ‘The Line’ – part of the NEOM project – by a staggering 98.6 percent, reducing it from the initial plans of covering an area of 170 kilometres and housing at least 1.5 million people to being only 2.4 kilometres with less than 30,000 residents.

The key reason for such a scale-down were financial issues and constraints forcing the kingdom to limit the project’s ambitious aims, which amounted to a grand $500 billion.

According to the outlet Business Insider, Riyadh is now actively seeking funding and investments for the Line, inviting potential investors to visit the futuristic city currently under construction.

Efforts made to attract and secure investments reportedly include recent visits by NEOM officials to China and Hong Kong, as well as visits by representatives to major cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, New York City, Boston, Washington, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, and London.

Read: Saudi Arabia seeks $2.7bn loan to build megacity