Saudi Arabia's Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) is allocating SAR 397 million ($105.86 million) in 2017 for a new lending programme for hospitality and tourism projects, Arabian Business reported.
The Cabinet approved the loans initiative as part of the National Transformational Program (NTP 2020), according to Arab News.
The tourism lending programme will total SAR 3 billion ($800 million) over five years.
A total of 40 requests for funding from investors in the hospitality and tourism sector have been submitted to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for approval, eight of which are estimated to total SAR 424 million.
The SCTH has carried out 14 workshops in Saudi Arabia on project lending conditions and terms, in addition to designing and printing 10,000 copies of brochures.
The NTP is a set of development targets announced in June 2016 by the Saudi government to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil. The five-year budget for the NTP initiatives amounts to SAR 268 billion, but short-term spending plans are yet to be announced.
