Public Investment Fund’s stake is a game changer for King Abdullah Economic City, says its CEO
Buoyed by the Public Investment Fund taking a stake in it last year, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City looks forward to playing a significant role in achieving the aims of Vision 2030, thanks in no small part to its “readymade infrastructure.”
In an exclusive interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative forum in Riyadh on Wednesday, KAEC’s CEO, Cyril Piaia, told Arab News that the investment by the PIF represented a major change and benefit for the city, in terms of the support they are receiving from the government.
“We get their attention from the ecosystem and this is totally in connection with Vision 2030,” he said. “So for us, it’s enabling us to be integrated into this ecosystem and benefit from those initiatives. The city needs to be activated.”
According to Piaia, the key advantage and value KAEC offers the marketplace lies in its ready-made infrastructure.
“We have world-class infrastructure,” he said. “We can welcome initiatives from Vision 2030 directly into the city and connect them to our infrastructure.”
He added that it is also an enabler of development for the city: “We are opening up the city, the doors of the city, to third-party developers, investors and operators.”
Previously, he explained, the city had excellent infrastructure but it was not fully utilized.
“There were a lot of things to develop, a lot of things to bring life, to bring activity and business into the city,” Piaia said.
“Right now, with the fact that we are adding the support of the PIF, we are connecting with all of the Vision’s realization program, and we have them rolling out their initiatives into the city. This is actually the future of the city as well.”
A new industrial strategy recently announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman perfectly aligns with KAEC’s efforts to develop, in partnership with King Abdullah Port, Piaia said.
“We recently signed with Lucid as core investors into the industrial valley and basically what we aim to do is to really integrate ourselves into the initiative of the Kingdom,” he said.
Piaia said that although Vision 2030 presents big challenges it also provides great momentum for change and they are happy to be involved.
“The status of our infrastructure is of a top standard. We have more than 500 kilometers of road into the city and we have all the facilities around that,” he said.
Piaia also revealed KAEC is also making inroads into digital innovation and recently signed a partnership agreement with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, their neighbor and a stakeholder.
“We want to develop high-tech and innovation in connection with them,” he said. “They have, for example, incubators for startups that are very much into innovation.”
We can welcome initiatives from Vision 2030 directly into the city and connect them to our infrastructure.
Cyril Piaia