Saudi Arabia, which is China's biggest source of oil, has appointed the China Railway Construction Corporation, together with a Saudi Arabian company and an unnamed French firm, .to build a 230mph rail link between the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah, at a cost of some 1.2 billion pounds. The train will cut the car journey time of five hours to half an hour.
The decision to build the Makkah Madinah link follows the announcement at the end of last year that the Kingdom would spend 3.6 billion pounds on five light rail systems linking Hajj locations, including Mina and the Hill of Arafat.
