Saudi Arabia announces independent $500b mega city

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz on Tuesday pledged a "moderate, open" Saudi Arabia, breaking with ultra-conservatives in favour of an image catering to foreign investors and Saudi youth.

Prince Mohammed, 32, did not mince words in declaring a new reality for the kingdom, hours after announcing the launch of an independent $500 billion mega city - with 'separate regulation' - along the Red Sea coastline. The 26,500sqkm project, dubbed Neom, includes a business and industrial zone extending into Jordan and Egypt.

"We want to live a normal life. A life in which our religion translates to tolerance, to our traditions of kindness," he told international investors gathered at an economic forum in Riyadh.

"Seventy per cent of the Saudi population is under 30, and honestly we will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today and at once," the Crown Prince said.

"We will end extremism very soon."

Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, said he would see to it his country moved past 1979, a reference to the rise of political Islam in the years following the assassination of King Faisal in 1975.

"We are returning to what we were before - a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions, traditions and people around the globe," he said.

Source: Khaleej Times