Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia is in preliminary talks with foreign firms to manufacture buses locally, Saudi transport minister said.
The kingdom is also planning to reconstruct part of its highway system into toll roads in an attempt to make its transport system more efficient, Nabeel Al-Amudi said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference in Jeddah on Sunday.
Al-Amudi remarked that the GCC country is currently developing its public transport system with a lot of buses in order to develop local industry.
He did not mention the names of the companies that Saudi Arabia is in talks with.
Saudi Arabia spends a huge amount of money to expand public transport systems in Riyadh and other big cities, according to the London-based news agency.
The kingdom has imported thousands of buses over the past few years, and by producing buses domestically it will save the import costs, create jobs, and lower dependence on oil exports.
The minister said that the kingdom had also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Toyota Motor Corp in March 2017 to conduct a feasibility study on vehicles and spare parts production in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi reform programme includes plans of the private sector operating in the transport infrastructure, both airports and seaports, in collaboration with the government acting as a regulator.
The programme is projected to be applied to the highway network, Al-Amudi noted.
The government aims to set up between four and six toll roads, to be operated by private companies in exchange for fees, he highlighted, adding that it might “be difficult because of the need to give road users the option of taking a non-toll route in each case.”
Draft plans for the aforementioned project are expected to be ready in six months, he added.
