NEOM … a new city
The usual policies of companies establishing large projects are to use their relations with prominent political figures to facilitate these projects, and so did the major companies in the Gulf countries.
The NEOM project launched by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, aims at making personal profit more than developing Saudi’s economy. It is impossible for the $500 billion of the project to be returned to the state treasury, given the world’s economic crisis and the growing deficit in the state budget.
GFH model
This model of cities was used in mega projects in the Gulf countries in the recent years until it became the main feature of global real estate projects.
These cities were called the GFH model in relation to the bank that was a pioneer in financing these projects in the past decade.
According to this model, the big companies used their relations with prominent political figures in the country, such as members of the ruling family, to get lands far from the city centers at very cheap prices, after promising to bring investors to reconstruct and build those lands and establish housing projects and services in these cities. After that they establish a sub-company to manage the project with an attractive marketing plan that the new city will be a media city, a tourist or entertainment city, etc. However, the reality showed failure of these projects, such as the failure of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Waterfront in Dubai, and the Blue City in Amman, all of which failed due to the economic crisis and the huge budget allocated for such projects.
Salt cities
Series of novels written by Abdulrahman Munif evolved about the reality of the Gulf since it lived in the darkness and refused the light, compared with its sudden change after it became controlled by the west. He expected that the Gulf cities would dissolve like mountains of salt.
The reality does not herald the success of major projects in Saudi, because they are often based on personal interests, which create opportunities to gain profits of these companies at the initial stage then they withdrew from these projects, in what is called as the economic game.
The national and international economic centers established that the NEOM project is not well planned, thus joining the list of salt cities which will dissolve over days.
An example of this is when the military regime in Egypt started working on a new branch of the Suez Canal, deluding the people of Egypt that it would bring unprecedented economic success to the country. All big companies refused to fund this project or invest in it, therefore, the regime sought to collect its money from the people.
Egypt then went through a financial crisis where the value of the Egyptian pound decreased due to the one-man’s decision to establish projects without any planning and the project failed after Egypt plunged into a major economic crisis.
Neom will not be more than one of the salt cities which will dissolve shortly due to the unrealistic mechanisms and plans.
What if NEOM falls into an electricity shortage crisis for any political, security, technological or natural reason? It would become just a ghost town in which there is no place for entertainment or anything else.
Read more: Activist’s jailing shows women won’t be safe in Neom
