Saudi Gazette report

Jeddah — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman inaugurated at Al-Salam Palace here on Sunday New Taif projects including the new Taif airport, Souq Okaz City, technology oasis, residential suburb, industrial city and university city.

The King was briefed on the New Taif projects by adviser to Emir of Makkah Dr. Saad Mohammad Mareq.

He said the New Taif is located northeast of the current city of Taif on an area of about 1,250 square kilometers and its total cost is estimated to be about SR11 billion.

Located northeast of Taif, southeast of Souk Okaz City and north of Mount Hala, the new Taif airport will be built at a cost of SR3.137 billion. It will be spread over an area of 48 million square meters.

A consortium of Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), Aviation Security in Airport Development (Asiad), and Flughafen München GmbH, the operator of Munich Airport, has been appointed to develop and operate the new Taif airport.

Souk Okaz City will attract 260,000 tourists annually. It will generate 4,400 new jobs. The city will have 1,250 hotel rooms and 130 housing units.

Technology oasis will be designed by a consortium of international companies. This includes the contract between King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology and representatives of Morganti Group.

The oasis will cover an area 35 million square meters.

It will have four important projects:

Manufacturing and assembling Antonov aircraft. The area will cover 500,000 square meters.

The project for constructing a factory to produce solar panels on an area of 25,000 square meters.

The project for producing electricity using photo-electric cells by constructing power generating plant using solar energy with the production capacity of one megawatt daily.

A project for fast growing fodder on an area of 50,000 square meters.

New Taif projects important components will be residential neighborhood which will have 10,000 housing units, an 11-million-square-meter industrial city, a 16.344-million-square-meter university city to be built at a cost of SR2 billion.