{"id":33040,"date":"2022-05-20T17:10:57","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T22:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=33040"},"modified":"2022-05-24T13:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T18:26:40","slug":"the-most-ambitious-project-on-earth-saudi-smart-city-neom-appoints-first-deputy-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2022\/05\/20\/the-most-ambitious-project-on-earth-saudi-smart-city-neom-appoints-first-deputy-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Most Ambitious Project on Earth:” Saudi Smart City NEOM Appoints First Deputy CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

As plans for the megacity develop, Saudi Arabia has appointed Banque Saudi Franci CEO, Rayan Fayez, as the first-ever deputy CEO of its NEOM<\/a> project. Described by the US-Saudi Business Council as \u201cthe most ambitious project on earth<\/a>,\u201d NEOM is a $500 billion \u201czero-carbon, renewable energy powered smart city<\/a>\u201d that Saudi Arabia plans to build in its northwestern Tabuk Province.<\/p>\n

NEOM was announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2017 as part of the Saudi Vision 2030<\/a> framework, which aims to reduce Saudi economic dependence on oil, develop the country\u2019s public sector, and increase government military expenditure. Situated between Egypt and Jordan, NEOM itself will mainly serve the first of these goals. The organization responsible for Saudi sovereign wealth, the Public Investment Fund, has said<\/a> the city\u2019s \u201cstrategic location will\u2026facilitate the zone\u2019s rapid emergence as a global hub that connects Asia, Europe, and Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it is intended to strengthen Saudi Arabia\u2019s position within the global trade network, NEOM will be semiautonomous, operating on a judicial system independent of its parent country\u2019s. As a transnational city, it will stretch to encompass swaths of Jordanian and Egyptian land. 26,500 square kilometers of the area will be Saudi Arabian, and Egypt has agreed<\/a> to allow the project 1,000 square kilometers of its South Sinai governate.<\/p>\n

Less information is available regarding a potential Jordanian contribution of land. A February 3rd article from the Jordanian News Agency Petra <\/i>tells<\/a> of a meeting between Jordanian Prime Minister Bishr Khasawneh and Chairman of the Saudi Shura Council Abdullah Al Sheikh, explicitly mentioning NEOM in its recap of the leaders\u2019 discussion of their countries\u2019 security and economies. However, it does not discuss whether Jordan is amenable to the project, let alone whether the country has decided to support it.<\/p>\n

Arab News <\/i>likewise reports<\/a> that Saudi Arabia is seeking \u201ccooperation with Jordan\u201d to propel the project, but it does not explicitly state whether Jordan has accepted Saudi Arabia\u2019s \u201cterms of collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever Jordan\u2019s opinion of NEOM, Saudi Arabia has proceeded in developing the region. Funding, which has come from private investors and the Public Investment Fund, has become a pressing matter. Fayaz has been appointed to manage project finances. \u201cAt some point,\u201d Arab News <\/i>writes<\/a>, NEOM \u201cneeds to generate income and manage a complex system of consolidated balance sheets for all of its upcoming subsidiaries.\u201d Fayaz will oversee such needs. Further, with him in charge of finances, NEOM CEO, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, will be free to focus on the engineering aspects of the city.<\/p>\n

Plans paint a picture of a NEOM that will be powered<\/a> solely by clean energy, namely wind and solar. The city will also produce substitutions for the oil Saudi Arabia currently exports: The US Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. has announced<\/a> that it will build the world\u2019s largest green hydrogen plant in NEOM. Additionally, Mohammad bin Salman has expressed<\/a> that Saudia Arabia intends for robots to have a presence in the city. \u201cEverything will have a link with artificial intelligence, with the Internet of Things\u2014everything.\u201d The city itself, located as it is in the middle of a desert, between mountains and the Red Sea, will be a feat of engineering in its own right. According to the plans<\/a>, it will be thirty-three times the size of New York City.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s name comes from the Ancient Greek Neo- <\/i>(\u201cnew\u201d) and the Arabic Mustaqbal <\/i>(\u201cfuture\u201d). Time will tell what Saudi Arabia is able to create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As plans for the megacity develop, Saudi Arabia has appointed Banque Saudi Franci CEO, Rayan Fayez, as the first-ever deputy CEO of its NEOM project….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":576,"featured_media":33713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2724,1],"tags":[3557,1262,3306,3831,2641],"coauthors":[3434],"class_list":["post-33040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-worldnews","tag-ceo","tag-city","tag-green-energy","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33040"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33561,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33040\/revisions\/33561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33040"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}