Giant smart city project nyum, Designed by the Saudi monarchy, it has lost one of its key leaders. who is responsible for the construction of the entire city, Nadimi al-Nasr. The reasons for the farewell are unclear, as Al-Nasser had led the project since 2018 and had not resigned in recent months, when two key foreign managers left their roles at Neom.
It is becoming increasingly difficult that Saudi Arabia will be able to complete the project on time and within the dimensions initially envisioned. It may also have implications for Italian institutions that have taken charge of some urban and technological development works. Neom
Director of Neom resigned.
Last November 13, the head of the Neom project, the most important manager of smart city development in Saudi Arabia, the prince and de facto leader of the country, Mohammed bin Salman, resigned. Nasr He was replaced by Ayman Al Madifar, the manager of the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, the entity that manages Saudi’s vast investments. However, this is only one of the many problems Neom is facing due to the various difficulties that surfaced during the launch of the project.
While it is unclear why Al-Nusr abandoned Neom, the last few months have been administratively complicated for the Saudi project. Two key foreign managers have actually resigned from two key positions for the city’s development. Van Borg, head of the media sector and above all Anthony Weiss, who dealt with The Line, the most famous part of the Neom. It is a 170 km linear city that runs through the desert on the Georgian border, where the smart city will be built.
Nadimi al-Nasr, who is now the former head. nyum, He has already come under fire for some of the attitudes he took towards the most skeptical voices on the feasibility of smart cities while managing the early stages of the project. The mountain resort’s first manager, Andrew Worth, resigned in 2021, accusing Al-Nasser of often engaging in “grossly inappropriate condescension and arrogant provocation”.
What are neumes and the line?
Neom is a futuristic urban development plan.Saudi Arabia which should be produced in the northern part of the Red Sea coast by 2025. First announced in 2017, it was strongly supported by the Saudi crown prince and the country’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman. According to economics, the main part of the project was to be completed in early 2020, but by 2022, much of the construction area was still desert.
At the core of Neom is its most ambitious project: line. The idea is a linear city, 200 meters wide and 170 kilometers long, under the distance between Rome and Naples. The urban development was supposed to be very compact and car-free, with every service available to citizens within 5 minutes of their homes. Compactness is central, given that many Saudi cities are sprawling, expanding residential areas into sparsely populated areas that only allow travel by car. The entire city, on which they were to develop between major centers, had to be environmentally sustainable.
Although Neom is often identified only with The Line project, the linear city is only one of the three pillars of the Saudi Smart City. On the coast, the region of Tobuk should rise. Oxagon The industrial city of Neom. Equipped with a fully automated commercial port, the city was to take the form of a regular octagon with half of its structures built directly into the Red Sea.
Finally, one should be born on the mountain range of Tobok trojan, The largest mountain resort in the Arabian Peninsula is expected to become the largest outdoor ski resort in the region. Apart from some futuristic features and a huge artificial lake, this project has proven to be the most easily feasible of all Neoms.
Italian companies are involved in this project.
One of the main objectives of Neom was to attract foreign investment and interest. Although the project is expected to receive funding from other countries, many companies have already started taking orders to make parts for it. Line, Oxagon’s or Trojan’s.
They also have this. web construction, Italian construction company that participated in the construction of the new Morandi Bridge in Genoa. The order is significant: $5.5 billion in orders from Neom, about 10% of the total investment to date. A worrying situation given the difficulties of Neom itself, but which in fact, according to Equita’s analysis, is less dangerous than expected: “To date, Webuild’s exposure to The Line is limited with the central configuration: its price 4 , is 7. billion dollars related to the development of Trojena where investment is expected in the short term to be the region that will host the 2029 Asian Winter Games,” reports an analysis.
In fact, a large portion of Webuild’s orders relate to Neom’s least ambitious project, the Trojena resort’s artificial lake. Webuild will actually build the three dams necessary to fill the basin. The situation with The Line is more clear. Trevi Finanziaria Industriale, which received, between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, the assignment of three lots of piles of linear city foundations. However, these are some of Neom’s earliest works and are therefore more likely to actually come to fruition.
The recent inclusion of is also important. theft An insurance company controlled by the Ministry of Economy. Sace secured $3 billion in loans from Saudi Arabia with some international banks to build Neom. The guarantee is 80%, and will be part of the plan by the government of Giorgia Maloney to increase the possibility of other Italian institutions being included in the Saudi Smart City project.
