Engineer Osama Khalaoui, Director of the Tourist Destinations Initiative and the Souk Okaz City Initiative at the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage, announced the allocation of a budget of 775 million riyals for the first phase, of which 220 million riyals will be used to construct the Authority’s projects, and 555 million riyals for the construction of infrastructure both on-site and off-site, with the private sector contributing approximately 1.3 billion riyals to the development, bringing the total expected investment in the first phase of the project to nearly 2 billion riyals.

Khalawi explained that the Okaz City development project in Taif is one of the Authority’s initiatives under the National Transformation Program 2020, noting that the Okaz Market site is currently undergoing archaeological studies and excavations across large portions of it after preliminary surveys indicated that it is rich in archaeological artifacts.

The National Transformation Program, approved by the Council of Ministers, adopted 13 initiatives for the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage at a cost exceeding 26 billion riyals; among the most prominent of these initiatives is the «Development of Tourist Destinations» initiative.