Saudi Arabia plans to allocate its airports and related services starting from next year until 2020. The plan aims to improve the level of services and the provision of additional resources to the treasury in light of falling oil prices.
The General Authority of Civil Aviation announced that the King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh “will be allocated under the name of” Airports Company of Riyadh “, during the first quarter of 2016.”
The Commission also intends to privatise the air navigation sector under the name of “air navigation services company” in the second quarter of 2016, and the sector of Information Technology under the name of “Saudi Company for flight information systems” in the third quarter of the same year.
The plan includes a “strategic allocation of the rest of the units in the remaining international airports, as well as regional airports and domestic groups, respectively, according to a program, and over the next five years 2016-2020”.
The Commission is expected to bring the program “to improve services, and the development of performance, in the system of airports, respectively, for their transitions to work business-oriented, competitive and standards, as well as the achievement of independence financially airports, thus contributing to supplement the national economy, through fiscal surplus, which will be provided by airports after cover their costs” .
The sectors that will be privatised under “the Saudi Civil Aviation Holding Company,” which is owned by the General Administration of Civil Aviation.
The head of the Board of Directors Sulaiman Al-Hamdan The objectives of the privatization program “to raise the productive efficiency of the system of airports and ease the financial burden on the state budget.”
This action comes in light of the decline in oil prices, which constitute more than 90 percent of the Kingdom’s income as the largest oil exporter in the world. The price of a barrel has declined more than 50 percent since the beginning of last year, to below $ 45.
