Recently, during a visit to China by Saudi Arabia's Minister of Municipalities, Rural Affairs and Housing, Majid bin Abdullah Al-Hogeir, the National Housing Company of Saudi Arabia (NHC) and CITIC Construction of China reached an important cooperation agreement. The agreement aims to jointly build an industrial city and a building materials logistics zone in Saudi Arabia to boost local infrastructure and economic development, and NHC's Chief Executive Officer, Mohammed bin Saleh Albouti, was personally present at the meeting to witness this landmark moment.
Saudi Arabia's real estate industry is developing rapidly, but the local housing supply is still lagging behind. When Majid bin Abdullah Al-Hogeir visited China in August last year, he said that there are currently 300,000 housing development opportunities in Saudi Arabia, distributed in 17 cities, with a total development area of 150 million square meters and an investment amount of more than 100 billion Saudi riyals ($26.6 billion). CITIC Construction has a long history of cooperation with NHC, and in 2022 the two sides signed a cooperation agreement for a 20,000-unit social housing project in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with a contract value of about $3.5 billion. The cooperation also further extends CITIC Construction from real estate construction to the upstream raw material supply chain.
This strategic partnership between NHC and CITIC Construction aims to enhance the supply chain reliability of its residential development projects and ensure high quality and timely completion. The partnership covers the construction of 12 factories focusing on building materials, localizing their application by incorporating advanced expertise and experience from China and encouraging the active participation of local factories in order to promote the continuous improvement of the professionalism of local companies in Saudi Arabia. This cooperation not only opens the door to a wide range of local factories, but also attracts top service providers in the industry to NHC, its subsidiaries, and many other project departments, creating a new chapter of mutual benefit and win-win situation.
The cooperation agreement is expected to have a profound impact on the economy and development of the Saudi real estate sector, NHC said. By developing high-quality housing projects, the agreement will not only enhance the quality of housing but also promote the overall transformation and upgrading of the country's construction industry with the construction of industrial cities and logistics zones. In addition, the cooperation between NHC and CITIC Construction will strongly promote the expansion of small and medium-sized factories in Saudi Arabia and provide direct production line support for NHC's project development, which will greatly contribute to the vigorous development of the local industry and create a large number of employment opportunities in the construction industry, contributing to the continued growth of the Saudi economy.