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The KAEC is to be established at a site near Rabigh, 200 kilometres northwest of Jeddah and represents the largest ever private sector development to date in Saudi Arabia.
An IPO route is also expected to be taken for the $2.7 million Um Al-Qura Economic City project near Makkah, a development to be located either on a site near the Makkah-Jeddah main highway or near Shuaiba on the Red Sea coast.
The Um Al-Qura city development is the fourth to be announced since December 2005 and along with KAEC and others in Hail and Madina each will have a specific focus.
Transport and logistics city
KAEC will concentrate on energy and transportation industries while Prince Abdul Aziz bin Mousaed Economic City near Hail is expected to be a new base for transport and logistical related service industries.
The $8 billion Hail development will create a community over a 156 million square metres area to include an inland port with warehousing and distribution services, agricultural processing industries as well as mining and related industries designed to exploit the region's natural resources. Construction is due to start in September.
Madina's $6.8 billion project aims to accommodate knowledge-based industries such as bio-science enterprises over a 4.8 million square metres area in an overall 13.8 million square metres development.
Emaar leads
By far the largest industrial and community development is that of KAEC. This will be built over 55 million square metres and feature a major seaport on the scale of Rotterdam's, a major industrial area, integrated high-speed transport system as well as a dedicated financial district containing hotels, exhibition and convention centre in addition to educational establishments, hospitals and residential areas
Emaar's chairman, Mohamed Ali Alabbar says that KAEC's six components comprising a seaport, industrial complex, education zone, a financial island, resort areas and residential districts will make the city an important global destination
Amr Al-Dabbagh, governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, describes the city projects as an aggressive bid to repatriate capital and attract value-added foreign investments.
