THE Line hailed by Saudi Arabia’s leaders as the jewel of the kingdom’s $2 trillion economic transformation has paused plans after spending too much money.
The stance on the barmy 1,600ft tall city appears to have drastically changed as they claim to have rushed into plans which have left them in the red.
The linear city’s plans showed the building stretching 106 miles inland from the Red Sea resort of Neom but now Riyadh have taken an even further step back from their Vision 2030 strategy.
They admitted to pausing plans on the strategy, which aims to move the kingdom’s economy away from the oil industry to instead prosper through tourism, technology and sporting events.
At a flagship investment forum in Riyadh last week, one official said: “We spent too much.
“We rushed at 100 miles an hour. We are running deficits. We need to reprioritise.”
Set up in 2016, Riyadh threw hundreds of billions at vanity projects like The Line, set to be the beacon of what life in the future would look like.
The outrageous settlement was set to boast no cars, no streets and no carbon emissions, holding a population of nine million.
Earlier this year the project was reported to be hanging by a thread as it was reduced by 99 per cent to stretch just 1.5 miles and house 300,000 people down from 1.5 million residents.
The Vision 2030 plan is underpinned by the assumption Saudi Arabia’s dominant industry, oil, would remain at $100 a barrel or higher.
In 2025 a barrel stands at roughly $60 and it hasn’t hit triple digits for three years- a major problem for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
It comes after years of rapid growth and billions of investment funnelled into “gigaprojects,” such as The Line which has been scaled back to only a few miles.
Jerry Inzerillo, an American-born executive and a key advisor to the prince said the nation was “making a course correction,” as a result of the country’s downturn in finances.
As the oil accounts for over half the countries economy, it is now being forced to be, “more conservative,” he told The Times.
Jerry added: “‘Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy country but there is a limit on how much it can spend relative to GDP.”
Saudi Arabia desperately asked consulting firms to review its plans to build the bizarre city and insiders told Bloomberg they asked about The Lines feasibility.
Neom previously said in a statement: “As is typical with large-scale, multi-year projects, strategic reviews are common practice and occur several times over the course of a major development project or infrastructure program.
“The Line remains a strategic priority and Neom is focused on maintaining operational continuity, improving efficiencies and accelerating progress to match the overall vision and objectives of the project.”
Saudi officials faced backlash as they confirmed the mountain resort of Trojena, which is scheduled to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games will also not be ready in time.
An official said: “It will be three or four years late, likely ready by 2032 in time for the 2033 games.”
South Korea are prepared to step in to host the 2029 games, report The Times.
Although many of Saudi Arabia’s projects are set to be completed on time due to hard and fast deadlines.
