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Investment
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KAFD Confirms Arriyadh at Heart of Arab Finance
There is no disputing that Saudi Arabia sits at the economic
center of the Arab World. This is not simply because it is the
Region’s largest and most robust economy. It is also because it
has a strong and prudentially managed financial sector which
has been largely unaffected by the international turmoil that has
challenged other local players.
In financial powerhouses such as New York, London and
Tokyo, banks and financial institutions, stock markets, brokers,
fund managers, accountants and lawyers, together with all the
ancillary services such as IT, consultancy and human resources
have sought to cluster as close as possible in districts that have
strained, and sometimes failed, to accommodate them all.
The dream of most professionals involved in one way or
another in finance is to be able to work within a single space
which gives them access to all the data and services that they
require.
Arriyadh’s remarkable $8 billion King Abdullah Financial
District is just about to make that dream a reality. Creating, from
scratch, an integrated forum for every aspect of financial services
is ambitious enough. It has been made possible because the
Kingdom’s investors and financial institutions have successfully
perfected their business supporting the immense surge in
infrastructural development and the rapid growath of a non-oil
economy. This expertise has been amassed in Sharia-compliant
Islamic finance as well as conventional banking.
Thousands of market professionals and regulators will soon
be working in a self-contained and secure city with its own
3.6-kilometer driverless monorail system to whisk people
around the 1.6-square-kilometer site. This will link in with a
major metro station on the King Abdulaziz Project for Public
Transport in Arriyadh. Besides abundant and, according to
the developers, reasonably-priced prestigious office space, the
KAFD has an extraordinary range of facilities, including hotel
and residential accommodation, retail malls and restaurants,
cafés and coffee bars, conference facilities and exhibition halls.
There is even a museum, along with the National Aquarium and
a Butterfly Dome, that will hold some of the world’s rarest and
most exotic butterflies.
What most KAFD visitors will not normally see is hardly
less spectacular. At the heart of the site lies a Tier-4 data
center, the most secure and robust data processing and storage
system possible. It includes backup power, redundant data
communications connections, stringent security and powerful
environmental controls, in the form of air-conditioning and fire
suppression. Naturally those who work in the KAFD will enjoy
blisteringly fast internet connections. Thanks to the almost
ubiquitous presence of wifi hubs, people will be able to work and
communicate regardless of where they are in the District.
Arriyadh – Capital with a Startling Growth Story
Any citizen of Arriyadh who is over 50 years old has a
remarkable tale to tell. In that person’s lifetime, the Saudi
capital has exploded from a population of merely 100,000 to a
cosmopolitan metropolis of approaching six million. The annual
rate of population growth never fell below 4.5 percent and in
the first decades of this century has risen to nearly 16 percent.
And this extraordinary blossoming shows little sign of slowing.
Arriyadh remains one of the world’s fastest growing cities.
Half a century ago, seeing a foreigner in the capital would be
relatively unusual, something to talk about at the local mosque
or in the family majlis. Today, some forty percent of the capital’s
population is made up of expatriates. A recent official survey
found that there are fifty different languages spoken. The
majority of the foreigners originate from Bangladesh, India,
Indonesia and the Philippines. There are also many workers
drawn in from other Arab countries, including Egypt, the
Lebanon, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
If you add to these outsiders, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans,
European, North American, and South Africans who are engaged
in the many new infrastructure projects, as well as manufacturing
banking, financial and legal services, it becomes apparent that
Arriyadh certainly rivals Cairo as the most culturally diverse
capital in the Arab world. The city’s deluxe air-conditioned malls
boast nearly all the same names, such as Saks of Fifth Avenue
and Harvey Nichols, that one would expect to find in London,
Paris, New York, Rome or Hong Kong.
English is the second language in the Saudi capital. There are
two rival and long established national English language print
newspapers as well as two new online English newspapers one of
which focuses on Arriyadh. The sheer range of nationalities that
have come to work and make their home in Arriyadh can be seen
by the wide variety of cuisine on offer. All the top international