New Saudi megacity will be publicly listed: Crown Prince

Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion industrial megacity, NEOM, will be floated on financial markets, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

“Without a doubt, at the end of the day NEOM will be floated in the markets. The first zone floated in the public markets. It’s as if you float the city of New York,” Prince Mohammed was quoted as saying.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia unveiled its plans for a new economic zone project, spread over 26,500 square meters and extending into Jordan and Egypt.

“It won’t be listed in the markets until the idea is mature enough,” Prince Mohammed said. “It might be after 2030, it might be before, but the idea and the strategy is to float it eventually.”

The sales are designed to boost the Saudi economy and create jobs for millions of young people.

“The first capitalist city in the world ... this is the unique thing that will be revolutionary,” the crown prince said.

NEOM will be fully owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF) until its listing, and is expected to attract investments from companies in renewable energy, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and entertainment.

The new city is part of the Saudi Vision 2030 reform plan to overhaul the country’s economy, diversifying it away from oil, and provide jobs for Saudi citizens.

“The idea is not to restructure the economy as much as to seize the opportunities available that we didn’t address before. We have high capacity and we use only a little,” the crown prince said.

“Vision 2030 is about a lot of big opportunities, so Aramco is one of them, NEOM another opportunity ... We have a lot of huge projects we will announce in the next few years,” he added.

Prince Mohammed also said the Saudi Aramco’s IPO remains on track for next year, adding that it could be valued at more than $2 trillion.

Talking about Saudi Arabia’s ongoing diplomatic dispute with Qatar, Prince Mohammed said it had not affected investment.

“Qatar is a very, very, very small issue,” he said.

Prince Mohammed also said that the Kingdom’s war in Yemen would continue in order to prevent the Houthi armed movement from turning into another “Hezbollah” on Saudi’s southern border.

“We’re pursuing until we can be sure that nothing will happen there like Hezbollah again, because Yemen is more dangerous than Lebanon,” he said.