Business & Money | Saturday 23 May, 2015 7:31 am |

A $100 billion city-from-scratch in Saudi Arabia is to be completed by 2035 and will serve as the main logistics and manufacturing hub for countries on the Red Sea, the world’s “largest new emerging market,” said the CEO of the company in charge of the mega-project.

The business model of an entire city being built by the private sector was so unusual that it required adjustments in the beginning, said Fahd Al-Rasheed, the Group CEO of Emaar Economic City (EEC), which is building the King Abdullah Economic City.

“Putting that first phase together is the most difficult point,” he told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of a regional conference of the World Economic Forum hosted by Jordan. “Once you figure it out, the sky is the limit, so we are in that phase now.”

EEC’s mother company, the Dubai-based Emaar Properties, built Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

The new city, located about 100 km north of Jeddah, is envisioned for 2 million residents, with industrial parks, hospitals, schools, golf courses and a port capable of handling 2.7 million containers per year.