Saudi Arabia's NEOM attracts $16B in private financing over 2 years
Saudi Arabia's flagship sustainability project has attracted substantial private investments and is looking for more.
RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's NEOM project has attracted $16 billion in private investments over the last two years, its deputy chief executive said, adding that the multibillion-dollar development is looking to court even more foreign direct investment as the kingdom downsizes a number of infrastructure projects.
"What we've seen over the last 18-24 months: a significant amount of private sector capital coming in, 60 billion riyals [$16 billion] of private sector commitments, more than 30 billion riyals [$8 billion] of debt funding across NEOM and the various projects and more to come," Rayan Fayez said at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on Wednesday.
"With these commercial assets becoming a lot more visible, we're seeing very good appetite from the private sector to co-fund and co-invest with us in the journey," he added.
NEOM, which had an initial investment outlay of $500 billion, is primarily funded by the Saudi state, largely through the Public Investment Fund as well as the Finance Ministry.
