Airports
There are 25 airports across the Kingdom of which three, at Riyadh, Jiddah and Dammam, are international. Fourteen are local and eight are regional. In 2000, 27.5 million passengers and 467,000 tons of cargo were handled.

Seaports
Saudi Arabia has eight major seaports with 183 berths capable of handling 252 million tons of cargo annually. All ports are managed, operated and maintained by private sector companies under long-term contracts.

Roads
Nearly 160,000 kilometers of road traverse the entire Kingdom. Of this total over 47,000 kilometers are asphalted and link the main centers. Road construction linking the outlying areas is on-going.

Railways
The Saudi Railways Organization (SRO), which operates 59 locomotives and over 2,300 passenger coaches and freight wagons, provides services over a network of 1,391 kilometers of track between Dammam and Riyadh, either direct or via Abqaiq and Hofuf, with branch lines to Dammam Port, Dhahran, Al-Judaidah, Ain Haradh and Al-Kharj. There are also detailed plans for the expansion of the railway network.

Communication All telecommunications facilities are available in the Kingdom including land lines, mobiles (GSM), fax, telex, satellite phones, pagers and the Internet.

Electricity & Water

Electricity and water are available Kingdom-wide, including in all industrial areas and cities.

How has Saudi industrial development been progressing?

Saudi Arabia has made big strides in the field of industrial development. The Kingdom has 3808 productive factories with an invested capital of more than SR 277 billion and about 371,000 workers.

The most important industries include industrial and plastic industries, industries of ceramic and construction materials as well as textiles, metal products and foodstuffs. The Kingdom's non-oil industrial exports amounted in 2005 to about SR 71.4 billion. These products were exported to more than 120 countries. By the end of 2005, the industrial sector, including oil refinery, constituted about 10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, the growth rate of the industrial sector amounted to about 16 percent, while the value of the industrial products amounted to more than SR 111 billion.

The Petrochemical Industry

The Petrochemical Industry represents a cornerstone in the diversification drive that Saudi Arabia launched primarily to reduce the heavy reliance of the economy on oil revenue. The Kingdom had successfully established a globally competitive petrochemical industry, particularly in the basic and intermediate petrochemical segments of the industry. The industry is projected to nearly double its production capacity to around 70 mty by 2010, with 24% of this capacity owned by the private sector.

Several opportunities exist for investors (foreign and local) to set up manufacturing ventures in the Kingdom in basic and intermediate petrochemicals. Investors will benefit from the feedstock cost advantage coupled with a modern infrastructure and favorable financing incentives. Likewise, ample opportunities exist for foreign and local investors in the downstream petrochemical industries in particular: plastic conversion and the performance chemicals manufacturing.