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Agreement Reached to Develop Sustainable Food Supply Using Sunlight in W. Saudi Arabia

The Red Sea Development Company partners with Red Sea Farms to develop a sustainable food supply for The Red Sea’s flagship destination using sunlight and saltwater. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Red Sea Development Company partners with Red Sea Farms to develop a sustainable food supply for The Red Sea’s flagship destination using sunlight and saltwater. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Agreement Reached to Develop Sustainable Food Supply Using Sunlight in W. Saudi Arabia

The Red Sea Development Company partners with Red Sea Farms to develop a sustainable food supply for The Red Sea’s flagship destination using sunlight and saltwater. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Red Sea Development Company partners with Red Sea Farms to develop a sustainable food supply for The Red Sea’s flagship destination using sunlight and saltwater. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), the developer behind the world’s most ambitious regenerative tourism project, has partnered with Red Sea Farms, a Saudi Arabian AgTech business, to develop a sustainable food supply for The Red Sea’s flagship destination using sunlight and saltwater.

Red Sea Farms will build and operate the indoor farm, growing crops to sustainably feed guests and residents at The Red Sea Project. It will become the main supplier to the luxury destination’s resorts and restaurants.

CEO of TRSDC John Pagano said: “At TRSDC we believe in embracing innovations to solve the challenges we face as we attempt to improve our relationship with the environment. Red Sea Farms’ technology is novel, exciting and has the possibility of helping to tackle food scarcity globally.”

“This partnership means we’re meeting our own sustainable and regenerative ambitions,” he added.

The innovative technology uses sunlight and saltwater to cool greenhouses and grow crops, instead of relying on rainfall, fresh groundwater, or desalinated water.

This saves up to 300 liters of freshwater per kilogram of produce – a 95 percent saving compared with other AgTech systems.

The technology has been designed and developed in Saudi Arabia for use in often challenging environmental conditions.

This means a reduced impact on the environment and a significant cost saving for growers. It also results in more nutritious crops, while also providing a richer taste, flavor, and texture.

By 2023, The Red Sea Project will welcome 300,000 guests annually and upwards of 14,000 employees, and once fully operational in 2030, up to one million guests per year and home to around 35,000 employees.

Feeding this many people in a remote, largely desert environment presents huge logistical challenges.

TRSDC has set aside a 50 square hectare food development area and is inviting leading companies from around the world to set up production facilities, as well as pilots of cutting-edge food technologies that can someday be used on a commercial scale.

The Red Sea Farms indoor farm will produce a diverse range of fresh leafy greens, herbs, vine crops, fruit including berries, and vegetables. Following the pilot, Red Sea Farms will have the option of expanding the farm to up to 100 hectares in the future, which would make it the largest sustainable farm of its kind in the world.

TRSDC also partnered with Blue Planet Ecosystems in a regional first to deliver sustainably produced seafood.

The first phase of the project will be implemented as a 3,500m2 pilot, to assess whether conditions at The Red Sea Project are suitable for the solution to work effectively and efficiently.

This will be the first Land-based Automated Recirculating Aquaculture (LARA) system pilot in the Middle East to undergo a commercial trial.

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IMF Sees Steady Global Growth

FILED - 24 October 2024, US, Washington: The logo of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is seen on the facade of the conference building on Pennsylvania Street. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
FILED - 24 October 2024, US, Washington: The logo of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is seen on the facade of the conference building on Pennsylvania Street. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
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IMF Sees Steady Global Growth

FILED - 24 October 2024, US, Washington: The logo of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is seen on the facade of the conference building on Pennsylvania Street. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
FILED - 24 October 2024, US, Washington: The logo of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is seen on the facade of the conference building on Pennsylvania Street. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa

The International Monetary Fund expects the world economy to grow a little faster and inflation to keep falling this year. But it warned that the outlook is clouded by President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to slash US taxes, impose tariffs on foreign goods, ease regulations on businesses and deport millions of immigrants working illegally in the United States.

The Washington-based lending agency expects the world economy to grow 3.3% this year and next, up from 3.2% in 2024. The growth is steady but unimpressive: From 2000 to 2019, the world economy grew faster – an average of 3.7% a year. The sluggish growth reflects the lingering effects of big global shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The IMF is a 191-nation lending organization that works to promote economic growth and financial stability and to reduce global poverty.

Global inflation, which had surged after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains and caused shortages and higher prices, is forecast to fall from 5.7% in 2024 to 4.2% this year and 3.5% in 2026.

But in a blog post that accompanied the release of the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook report, the fund’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, wrote that the policies Trump has promised to introduce “are likely to push inflation higher in the near term,” The Associated Press reported.

Big tax cuts could overheat the US economy and inflation. Likewise, hefty tariffs on foreign products could at least temporarily push up prices and hurt exporting countries around the world. And mass deportations could cause restaurants, construction companies and other businesses to run short of workers, pushing up their costs and weighing on economic growth.

Gourinchas also wrote that Trump’s plans to slash regulations on business could “boost potential growth in the medium term if they remove red tape and stimulate innovation.’’ But he warned that “excessive deregulation could also weaken financial safeguards and increase financial vulnerabilities, putting the US economy on a dangerous boom-bust path.’’

Trump inherits a strong US economy. The IMF expects US growth to come in at 2.7% this year, a hefty half percentage point upgrade from the 2.2% it had forecast in October.

The American economy — the world's biggest — is proving resilient in the face of high interest rates, engineered by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation. The US is benefiting from a strong job market that gives consumers the confidence and financial wherewithal to keep spending, from strong gains in productivity and from an influx of immigrants that has eased labor shortages.

The US economy’s unexpectedly strong performance stands in sharp contrast to the advanced economies across the Atlantic Ocean. The IMF expects the 20 countries that share the euro currency to collectively grow just 1% this year, up from 0.8% in 2024 but down from the 1.2% it was expecting in October. “Headwinds,” Gourinchas wrote, “include weak momentum, especially in manufacturing, low consumer confidence, and the persistence of a negative energy price shock’’ caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Chinese economy, No. 2 in the world, is forecast to decelerate – from 4.8% last year to 4.6% in 2025 and 4.5% in 2026. A collapse in the Chinese housing market has undermined consumer confidence. If government doesn’t do enough to stimulate the economy with lower interest rates, stepped-up spending or tax cuts, China “is at risk of a debt-deflation stagnation trap,’’ Gourinchas warned, in which falling prices discourage consumers from spending (because they have an incentive to wait to get still better bargains) and make it more expensive for borrowers to repay loans.

The IMF forecasts came out a day after its sister agency, the World Bank, predicted global growth of 2.7% in 2025 and 2026, same as last year and 2023.

The bank, which makes loans and grants to poor countries, warned that the growth wasn’t sufficient to reduce poverty in low-income countries. The IMF’s global growth estimates tend to be higher than the World Bank’s because they give more weight to faster-growing developing countries.