Abdul Rahman Al-Fadhli, Minister of Atmosphere, Water and Agriculture
The Minister of Atmosphere, Water and Agriculture, Abdul Rahman Al-Fadhli, stated that the Kingdom is the most important water producer on this planet, with a capability exceeding 16 million cubic meters per day, indicating that it goals to cut back the price of water manufacturing by 50%, and cut back the consumption of non-renewable groundwater by 90% by 2035.
Al-Fadhli defined, throughout his participation within the Rome Dialogue, that the Kingdom concluded 25 contracts with the participation of the non-public sector for a lot of tasks with an funding quantity exceeding 104 billion riyals, together with tasks for desalinated water manufacturing, transportation, and reuse.
He added that the Kingdom possesses large infrastructure to move water over distances exceeding 19,000 kilometers and heights of as much as three thousand metres, and water networks cowl greater than 82% of the inhabitants areas within the Kingdom.
Al-Fadhli harassed that the Nationwide Water Technique contributed to decreasing the annual price of use of non-renewable water sources in agriculture by 8 billion cubic meters, in comparison with the baseline when the technique was launched, and the rise in the usage of renewable water amounted to a couple of billion cubic meters yearly by means of initiatives to reap rainwater.
He identified that the gross home product from agriculture within the Kingdom witnessed exceptional progress in the course of the interval (2020 – 2024), because it rose from 85.1 billion riyals in 2020 to about 117.9 billion riyals in 2024, recording a compound annual progress of about 8.5%, indicating that the sector is linked to the abundance of water.
He said that, primarily based on this, work has been carried out to handle water within the Kingdom in a means that achieves balanced sustainability between meals manufacturing and water sustainability, to realize a steadiness between provide and demand, improve the return from agricultural use of water on meals safety domestically, and assist detailed research of water-bearing aquifers, floor water, and rationalized irrigation insurance policies.
