Riyadh—Amlak
In accordance with the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz —may God preserve him—ten investors plan to submit applications to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to obtain licenses to establish 10 cement plants in various regions of the Kingdom, at a total cost of 5 billion riyals, with an average construction cost of 500 million riyals per plant.

For his part, Engineer Raed Abdulkarim Al-Aqili, Vice Chairman of the Contractors and Ready-Mix Concrete Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, explained: that demand for cement will decline over the next three years due to the stabilization of projects launched during the construction boom—considered the largest development plan in Saudi history, with an estimated value of 1,400 trillion riyals—during the period from 2009 – 2014), during which cement was used in the initial phases of project construction. By the end of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, which concludes next year, most of the Kingdom’s development projects will have been launched, are currently underway, or have been fully completed. The projects reached their peak at the end of the plan and have begun to decline. He noted that these capital projects require continuous support from the state, either through contributions to their capital or by opening lines of credit for them at banks to import materials for the construction of factories.
Engineer Al-Aqili said: «The King’s decision—may God preserve him—came in record time and swiftly to resolve the cement shortage that has been occurring every year recently,” noting that the King’s directives address the needs of citizens wishing to build homes for themselves.
He explained that the crisis in the shortage of cement bags arose due to production line downtime, either because of scheduled routine maintenance or emergency repairs, and any shortfall in production at any plant when demand peaks will affect and be reflected in the market, especially in the areas where that plant is located.
Engineer Al-Aqili noted that the Contractors and Concrete Committee has proposed both long-term and short-term solutions to this crisis, The short-term solutions are those the market needs right now; they involve opening up cement imports from abroad, particularly from the United Arab Emirates, which has a surplus amounting to half of its production—approximately 25 million metric tons in exports— Exporting this surplus to Saudi Arabia may be preferable due to its geographical proximity; additionally, there are opportunities to import from other countries such as Sudan and some Eastern European nations. As for long-term solutions, these involve establishing four cement plants in the Kingdom, which in the future will transform the country from an importer to an exporter..