DSV Enters $10B Logistics Joint Venture for Saudi Megaproject

NEOM, the ambitious mega-city project on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, has signed up for a joint venture with logistics giant DSV worth $10 billion over the span of the next eight years. 

If fully built, NEOM would dwarf the last ten years' worth of progress on China's massive Belt and Road Initiative. It is a $500 billion plan to build a new society on a 10,000-square-mile plot of northwestern Saudi Arabia - a rocky area larger than Israel - and to kickstart a new innovation economy, independent of the nation's vast oil wealth. 

Under the newly-signed agreement, DSV will help set up an exclusive logistics joint venture to support the construction and operation of NEOM. The scope will include supply chain management, investments in transport and logistics infrastructure, and the transport and delivery of goods within the city. NEOM will own 51 percent of the joint venture. In a statement, DSV described it as a "significant growth opportunity" for the Danish firm, which already has a strong presence in Saudi Arabia.

"The economic benefit to this partnership will not only provide tens of thousands of jobs, but it will also enable growth to capture local and regional market share," said NEOM CEO Nadhmi Al-Nasr. 

The most ambitious element of NEOM is a car-free linear city, dubbed "The Line", which is designed to house nine million residents within a mirrored compound measuring 700 feet wide and 100 miles long. Construction on The Line is already under way, and its sponsors have described it as "a model for nature preservation and enhanced livability." UN human rights experts have noted concerns with the legal procedures for clearing the land.