Neom to work with HK partners on construction
Members of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Neom megacity project team, who were in Hong Kong on Friday, said they can draw inspiration from the city’s mature urban infrastructure and its harmonious coexistence with natural elements, and foster collaboration with some of the city’s professionals.
The “Discover Neom” Hong Kong media tour, held on Friday at the M+ museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District, was co-organized with the Belt and Road Office under Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. Its purpose was to promote the vision and objectives behind Saudi Arabia’s planned futuristic megacity, and to outline its construction milestones.
A key part of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 project, Neom is a technology-focused metropolis that is being built from scratch. It will stretch inland across the desert from the Red Sea coast in the northwest of the country.
Nicholas Ho Lik-chi, Hong Kong’s commissioner for Belt and Road, said: “As the Belt and Road Initiative and Neom both share a long-term vision to create a sustainable future based on collaboration, connectivity and innovation, ‘Discover Neom’ brings people and ideas together to facilitate opportunities and long-term cooperation.”
He added that he expects the event to create opportunities for Hong Kong’s business, technology and cultural sectors, and to help foster lasting partnerships under the Belt and Road Initiative over the next decade.
Tarek Qaddumi, executive director of Neom urban planning, said the “overall mission” behind the visit to Hong Kong was to meet potential partners in the city and learn from their expertise. He said that the city has demonstrable strengths in construction, innovation, and technology.
Qaddumi said that Neom is currently focused on infrastructure and construction development, areas in which Hong Kong has a vast amount of experience.
“We’re looking to do things better, more efficiently, not just throwing people and resources at it,” he said.
The Hong Kong event marks the latest leg of the Saudi delegation’s China tour, following trips to the United States and Europe. The delegation also visited Beijing and Shanghai to promote the 26,500square-kilometer, renewable energy-powered, $500 billion megacity.
During the event in Hong Kong, Qaddumi — who has worked on the Neom project for the last five years — also introduced the project’s infrastructure advancements, sustainability initiatives, and technological innovations.
Neom is expected to balance three major pillars — nature conservation, human livability, and economic prosperity — by embracing technology, imagination, talent, and scientific advancements.
The Line, the linear city within the Neom region, will be the “first and foremost” urban project with a unique relationship with nature, and will accommodate a projected population of 9 million, Qaddumi said.
The Line will conserve nature, and its carbon footprint will be “equivalent to 2 percent that of London, for the same population (size)”, he added.
Qaddumi said The Line is designed as both a linear city and a three-dimensional vertical city. From a linear perspective, it provides easy access to a view of nature within five minutes, allowing residents to “just forget about the busy-ness of the city,” Qaddumi said.
“At the same time, you can walk back into a city that is very much as vibrant as Hong Kong or Manhattan or London, so that vibrancy and nature are side by side.”
As a vertical city, Qaddumi said, it will be highly functional, bringing facilities closer to inhabitants.
“So what we do is we layer the city,” he said, so that people “can reach a good hospital, a great educational institute, a museum all within five minutes.”
Qaddumi added that, with the world now aware of the importance of renewable energy and the damage that fossil fuels and other nonrenewables can cause to the environment, the Neom team has made it its mission to power the city fully on renewable energy.
“We have solar farms or solar gardens already in Neom, and we’re constructing a wind farm as well,” he said.