The Director General of the National Prawns Company, Ahmad Rasheed Al-Balla, said that a prawn-production project 15 kilometres off Al-Laith city, is the first of its kind in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The project commences on Wednesday, on an area of 129 square kilometres. It will produce 30,000 tons of prawns, which will make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia one of the top ten producers of prawns in the world.
In a press statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Al-Balla’ said that the total cost of the project in its first phase is estimated to be SR750 million.
The project will produce 12,500 tons of prawns from ten plantations of 2,500 hectares (53.1 square-kilometres), which are connected by an integrated grid of electricity, roads, irrigation and sewage canals.
Work on the project in its first phase began in 1419 H (1999), when an economic feasibility study of the prawn industry was conducted in coastal areas of the Kingdom.
The second phase of the project will commence imminently. It will comprise 15 plantations on an area of 67.4 square-kilometres. This phase of the project will cost SR600 million, and will create an annual production capacity of 17, 500 tons of prawns.
Source: SPA
