King Abdullah Economic City eyes 12,000 jobs by 2015

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Economic City is on target to create 12,000 jobs by 2015, with 10,000 already in place, the project’s CEO said on Monday. “We estimate that we will have 12,000 jobs in three years,” Fahd Al Rasheed, CEO of King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), said at the 6th Arabian Business Forum at the Armani Hotel in Dubai. KAEC, which is a US$100bn project being built by Dubai’s Emaar Properties - developer of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building - will be home to 2m residents when it is completed in 2025, Al Rasheed added. With 10,000 jobs already created, Al Rasheed reported Saudi Arabian Airlines will move 2,000 employees to KAEC as the project begins to take shape. The size of Washington DC when finished, the project’s key sectors will be tourism, logistics, energy, transportation and manufacturing and Al Rasheed is confident KAEC’s aim is to entice western companies to invest cash in the kingdom. "Companies in Europe have US$1.5 trillion in cash," Al Rasheed said. "Their difficulty is working out where to invest it - their biggest problem is entering new markets. This is something that Dubai and the Gulf needs to leverage in a big way." Al Rasheed said the aim was that every job created in industry or logistics, three more will be created downstream and another three or four will be created in the spin off retail, marketing a services spin-off sector. Going forward, KAEC’s port will open in 2013, the first school will open in September and a metro will need to come on stream in the next few decades, he added. By / Arabian Business