Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject

Neom officials visited Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong last week to court Chinese investors and shed more light on the mysterious megacity.

While no deals have been announced, one attendee told Agence France-Presse that the exhibition helped make Neom “less mysterious.”

That observation came from Leonard Chan, the chair of the Hong Kong Innovative Technology Development Association who also told the news agency that reactions to the ambitious project at an invitation-only reception were “mostly neutral.”

Chan may not be first in line for The Line, however. “I’ll visit for fun, but I won’t live there. It’s like something out of ‘SimCity,’” he told AFP.

A private showcase provided attendees with an “immersive experience” exploring The Line, a 105-mile-long futuristic city, along with Oxagon, which promises to redefine the “traditional industrial model”; Trojena, Neom’s mountain resort; and Sindalah, a luxury island in the Red Sea that opens to the public later this year, per a press release.

Neom officials did not address recent reports that plans for the hugely expensive desert project were being scaled back.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia had significantly reduced estimates for the number of people expected to live in The Line. Officials cut the number of expected residents for the “horizontal skyscraper” from 1.5 million by 2030 to fewer than 300,000, the report said.

Tarek Qaddumi, Neom’s executive director, said that the population target of 9 million would be achieved in time, per AFP.

Representatives for Neom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider made outside normal working hours.

Wider concerns have reportedly been raised about the trillion-dollar investments in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 project.

The financial realities of the project, which could cost as much as $500 billion, have started to cause alarm within the Saudi government, Bloomberg reported. The country has also started borrowing to help fund Neom and other Vision 2030 “megaprojects,” The Wall Street Journal reported in February.

The Neom project is also planning to issue bonds for the first time, Bloomberg reported last week. The megacity project could raise up to $1.3 billion by selling Islamic bonds, or sukuk, the outlet reported, citing unnamed sources.

The Neom road show has also visited Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, and London.