Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia on Thursday said it expects operation for the first airport in its multi-billion mega city NEOM to commence before the end of 2018.

In the beginning of 2019, the airport will begin weekly flights to and from the airport, a statement via NEOM’s official Twitter account showed.

“This is part of a general plan to establish a network of airports in NEOM, one of which will be an international airport,” the megaproject further noted.

On a related note, 16 new economic sectors will be included in NEOM’s investments and are expected to secure an annual income of $100 billion upon reaching advanced phases.

Earlier on Thursday, the $500 billion project’s CEO Nadhmi Al Nasr said on the sidelines of the third day of Future Investment Initiative (FII) that this major investment was forecast to contribute to boosting the nation’s economy through "reducing leakages".

On Tuesday, 9 October the Kingdom unveiled the formation of NEOM’s advisory board comprising 19 members who are experts in urban planning, architectural engineering, designing, technology, sustainability, energy, and industrialisation.

Last month, Neom’s team began environmental, archaeological and geological surveys. In August, the oil-rich GCC nation hired Aradhana Khowala to be the head of NEOM’s tourism sector, while Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz met with the cabinet for the first time in NEOM city.

During April, Bechtel said it was interested in partaking in the Saudi megaproject, whose first mention and announcement was made in October 2017 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at $500 billion in total investments.

Global investors, including Amazon.com Inc., Alibaba Group, and Airbus Group discussed investment options with bin Salman for NEOM. In November 2017, Russia said it would cooperate with Saudi Arabia to build a plant for establishing ships in NEOM.