{"id":100884,"date":"2025-09-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/2025\/09\/25\/aseer-is-in-the-forefront-of-saudi-push-to-narrow-regional-economic-gap\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:00:00","slug":"aseer-is-in-the-forefront-of-saudi-push-to-narrow-regional-economic-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/2025\/09\/25\/aseer-is-in-the-forefront-of-saudi-push-to-narrow-regional-economic-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Aseer is in the forefront of Saudi push to narrow regional economic gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>The Kingdom\u2019s efforts to reduce<\/strong> regional inequality through major state-backed projects <\/strong>in <\/strong>Aseer province <\/strong>got ink from the <\/strong>Financial Times<\/a><\/strong>, highlighting the government\u2019s SAR 25 bn investment pledge in Aseer, of which SAR 20 bn will come from the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to support major developments including the flagship Soudah Peaks project \u2014 dubbed \u201cBeverly Hills of Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The salmon-colored paper is following the change already seen in Abha<\/strong>, including women in the driving seat, young Saudis taking jobs as baristas and taxi drivers, and dress-codes gradually relaxing. Private-sector projects are also emerging, including a retail and hotel complex, being developed by a Saudi company, and a USD 150 mn luxury hotel in Soudah mountains by US-based Amek Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although unemployment in Aseer has fallen from 17% three years ago to 10.7% today<\/strong>, the paper notes it is still the highest among the Kingdom\u2019s provinces, with average household income remaining far lower than that in Riyadh. This income gap between Riyadh and other provinces has pushed over 250k Saudis to move to the capital in the last five years, pushing rents up by 30%-40%. \u201cDisparities in transition are normal. What\u2019s important is to understand what\u2019s driving them,\u201d Economy Minister Faisal Alibrahim noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unemployment in Aseer has fallen from 17% three years ago to 10.7% today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2561],"tags":[4371,10,1151,229,2098],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-100884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saudi-in-the-news","tag-aseer-2","tag-enterpriseam-ksa","tag-public-investment-fund-pif","tag-saudi-in-the-news","tag-soudah-peaks","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"24c31afa-7a13-4da7-959a-968a0ec79893","order":"9","is_powered_by":false,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"https:\/\/ent.news\/2025\/8\/341.jpg","photo_position":"above","homepage_title":"","full_issue_title":"Saudi\u2019s push to narrow regional economic gap","related_issue":[100869],"teaser":"Unemployment in Aseer has fallen from 17% three years ago to 10.7% today","voice_url":"https:\/\/s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/ent.news\/audio\/2025\/9\/.6f424af1-70b7-463a-8dc9-b403ff99346c.mp3"},"yoast_head":"\nAseer is in the forefront of Saudi push to narrow regional economic gap - 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