Dreams in the desert

That old romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridge would have had a thing or two to say about the intentions of Saudi Arabia’s dynamic new supremo, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS.

It was 220 years ago when the poet stuffed himself to the gills with opium, hit the pillow and woke up after a dream that is startlingly prescient of the vision of MBS: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.” If you change a couple of names and update the tech, you’ve got the plan for Neom.

There’s no hyperbole in the statement that this is “the world’s most ambitious project: an entire new land, purpose-built for a new way of living”. The Saudis are chucking Us$500bn at a chunk of land straddling their borders with Jordan and Egypt, and while it currently looks like a pretty scrubby patch of desert with the Red Sea in front and some forbidding mountains behind, there’s no doubt that $500bn can perk things up.

Anybody who’s ever suffered a night out in Riyadh might raise an eyebrow at the claim of a “worldbeating quality of life”, but Neom will have an autonomous judicial system that will adopt international best practice to ensure an idyllic lifestyle.

It may be a while before Neom knocks Ibiza off its perch as a party capital, but for the investor the sheer quantity of loot sloshing around is an intriguing prospect. It’s promising the future of energy and water, mobility, biotech, food, technological and digital sciences, advanced manufacturing, media, entertainment and living, so it should have most bases covered.

Anybody who’s ever suffered a night out in Riyadh might raise an eyebrow at Neom’s claim of a ‘worldbeating quality of life’