JEDDAH — Director of international trade at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and supervisor of Jazan Industrial City, Prince Turki bin Mohammad bin Nasser, and Managing Director of Al Mohtesham Faiz Mohammad, signed an agreement to set SR100 million lubricant plant in the city. The plant would produce 2.4 million tons of lubricants annually. “This will be our third lubricant plant in the GCC. Other plants are in Dubai and Oman,” he said while disclosing plans to expand his company's operations in Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Rafik Mohammad, chairman of Gammon Group, which is developing the SR75 billion Jazan Industrial City, said a number of international companies have expressed their intent to implement their projects in the new city. “The Jazan industrial city will spur the economic growth of Jazan and bring about a face-lift for the region,” said Sheikh Rafik, who is spearheading the campaign to develop a state-of-the-art city with various industries including pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals. Prince Turki has been authorized by the government to develop the city by bringing foreign investors to build the city's entire infrastructure facilities as well as to establish plants for automobile industries, IT parks, food processing plants, building materials, hospitals and hotels. “The main attraction of this Jazan venture is that if major companies are ready to invest and transfer their technology, the government will pay them 75 percent of their project cost in soft loans for 20 years,” Mohammad told the media. — SG
