In December 2018, Zawya (Thomson Reuters Projects), citing the Arabic daily Aleqtisadia, reported that Saudi Arabia planned to tender water and farming schemes worth around 36 billion riyals (USD 9.6 billion) in the first quarter of 2019. The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture was in charge. Plans included enlarging some desalination units, building new pipelines and extending distribution networks. According to the ministry, the country already produced over 5 million m³/day of desalinated water, and almost 300 billion riyals were earmarked for the water sector under Vision 2030.
The report showed that Saudi Arabia treated desalination expansion as one part of a broad investment programme and intended to bring private investors in deliberately.
Source: Zawya (Kopie im Webarchiv)