The Saudi National Water Company (NWC) signed two contracts worth $154 million with the private sector to operate water services and environmental sanitation in the central and eastern sectors merged under the company's umbrella in early March.
The company recently completed merging six sectors under its umbrella. It officially included the last four regions in the merger phase, namely al-Qassim, Hail, al-Jouf, and the Northern Borders.
The first contract was signed with Saudi al-Khorayef Alliance and French Veolia to operate and maintain the Riyadh region.
The second was signed with the Saudi Miahona Alliance, the French group Saur, and the Philippine company Manila Water to operate and maintain the Eastern Cluster.
NWC CEO Mohammed al-Mowkely said that one of the essential pillars of Vision 2030 is the welfare of citizens and the quality of services offered to them, which resulted in preparing the 2030 National Water Strategy.
"The National Water Company Strategy was accredited to prepare detailed plans to develop the level of water services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the participation of the private sector,” Mowkely said.
He revealed that NWC has fully completed restructuring the water services in the Kingdom by annexing 13 administrative regions to six sectors under the company's umbrella.
Mowkely pointed out that these contracts depend on achieving 14 key indicators that the Consortium must achieve: improving the customer experience and developing it, raising operational efficiency through cost rationalization, reducing water loss, and improving network management.
The contract is signed for seven years, and if targets are met after the third year of the agreement, and the readiness of the sector increased, this will enable the Company to move directly to the phase of concession contracts in which the private sector will take full responsibility for water services, and not wait until the seven years are over, according to Mowkely.
The National Water Company confirmed that the sector integration program approved by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture aims to provide a modern administrative and technical capabilities environment to raise operational efficiency and performance administratively.
Meanwhile, the Kingdom is intensifying its efforts to provide possible credit facilities to support its services and products export into regional and global markets through many programs and initiatives.
Saudi Export-Import Bank (EXIM) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with HSBC Bank Middle East Limited (HSBC) and Saudi British Bank (SABB).
The memorandum establishes a framework of cooperation between the three organizations in trade and export financing and credit insurance in line with Saudi EXIM Bank's mandate to boost exports of Saudi products and services.
CEO Saudi EXIM Bank Saad al-Khalb said that the MoU confirms the bank's commitment to drive efforts to develop and diversify Saudi Arabia's non-oil exports and to enhance cross-border trade flows.
"Our collaboration with HSBC and SABB represents a significant step towards achieving our objectives to build effective partnerships with national and international financial institutions. We look forward to working together to contribute to realizing Vision 2030's goals,” he said.
For his part, Regional CEO of HSBC Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey Stephen Moss, indicated that Vision 2030 is one of the world's most ambitious economic transformation programs.
"With a global network, HSBC covers more than 90 percent of world trade and capital flows and is well-positioned to support the Kingdom's aims for the sustainable growth and development of Saudi businesses and exporters with our financing, investment, and transaction banking solutions."
