Saudi Arabia’s eastern industrial hub of Jubail received the accolade of the city with “the best economic potential in the Middle East” from the Financial Times Business’ Foreign Direct Investment (fDi) magazine.

Jubail was selected over 40 other economic centres by a panel of expert judges who went through numerous economic and business details before coming up with the winner.
Once famous for pearling, Jubail now stands as a glowing symbol of the Saudi government’s vision for the country’s future development. The city has enjoyed massive foreign investments totalling to date $46 billion. The Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) has skillfully guided Jubail I towards sustainable economic development and has recently inaugurated Jubail II with the same in-depth planning and incentives for investors that made Jubail I such a success.
Apart from being home to the world’s largest petrochemical complex, Jubail is now estimated to account for as much as 7 per cent of the world petrochemical market.
One of the points considered by the judges was that while overall GDP growth can vary sharply from year to year because of price fluctuations in the oil sector, the Jubail region’s private sector contribution to the GDP had grown at a steady, average rate of almost 4 per cent per year for the last 10 years.
Amr Abdullah Al Dabbagh, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia), noted: “This indicates an underlying stability in the economy with heavy anticipated growth because of the private sector’s continued expansion.”
Among other factors supporting Jubail’s qualifications was that the inflow of foreign investment in Jubail was also directed towards community-responsible and environmentally conscious projects.
The judges took into account recent legislative moves to boost industrial development including allowing 100 per cent direct foreign project ownership, expatriate ownership of real estate and unrestricted repatriation of capital and profits.
Sagia’s investment strategy focuses on the key economic sectors that capitalise on Jubail’s strengths and investment competency in energy and transportation.
Jubail’s rapid rise to world fame is continuing with numerous joint ventures being established in the city including Sina Petrochemical Co, Bassel International Petroleum Corp and the joint venture between the Canadian company Acetex and Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Tasnee Petrochemical Corporation. Of all foreign investment flowing into Saudi Arabia, nearly half has gone to the city.
There are almost 30 plants under construction in Jubail, with another two undergoing major expansions.  There are another 44 on the drawing boards.
A project to create the 6,200-hectare Jubail Industrial City II foresees industrial investment totaling $56 billion and the creation of 55,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the construction of a new 1,065-km railway line to link Jubail with Jeddah via Dammam and Riyadh to form an East-West land bridge, combined with a longer line to link Jubail with the mineral-rich north, will elevate Jubail’s strategic importance even more. In 1982, Time magazine wrote: “The search for historical comparisons with Jubail is daunting. In all the expansive sweep of civil engineering, from the pyramids of the Nile to the construction of the Panama Canal, nothing so huge, or costly, as Jubail has ever before been attempted by anyone.”  Time’s assessment is as applicable today as it was back then – especially as the RCJY and Sagia work together to make Jubail’s continued growth as productive as possible.