Saudi Arabia to seek bidders for rail link from Red Sea to Persian Gulf
Riyadh — Saudi Arabia plans to seek bidders for the construction of a 1,600km railroad linking the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf as early as the end of this year, signalling the go-ahead for a long-delayed project seen as vital to reducing the economy’s dependence on oil. The so-called Land Bridge line will shave about three days off the current five-day journey time for shipping seaborne freight around the Saudi coast, while improving links to Riyadh, and Jeddah, the nation’s two biggest cities. Contract tenders will be issued at the end of 2017 or early in 2018 following an encouraging response to an invitation for expressions of interest, Saudi Railway CE Bashar Al Malik said in an interview. Saudi Arabia first awarded contracts for a privately funded coast-to-coast line in 2008 in an effort to accelerate the transit of goods around a country a fifth the size of the US, but put the project on hold after financial terms could not be agreed. It was now "moving ahead to implement th...
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