Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Seoul on Thursday to hold talks with President Yoon Suk-yeol and top business leaders, initiating a slew of agreements worth an estimated $30 billion between the two countries.  The crown prince’s trip to Seoul is his first in three years.  In a closed meeting held earlier in the day, Yoon and the crown prince agreed to develop bilateral relations into a “future-oriented strategic partnership” and establish a “strategic partnership committee” at the leadership level to promote cooperative projects more systemically, according to a written statement released by the presidential office.

Italian design house Pierpaolo Lazzarini has revealed plans for a gigantic $8bn turtle-shaped terayacht, with Saudi Arabia as the proposed location for the project. If funded, the project would be the world's largest water structure. The Lazzarini design house is known for its ambitious luxury transportation concepts. Earlier this year, it unveiled a flying superyacht concept powered by helium, named Air Yacht.

Some 26 memorandums of understanding between Korean companies and Saudi Arabia were announced with the arrival of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud in Seoul on Thursday.
 
The business agreements, though they have no legal bound, include a $7 billion petrochemical project by S-Oil, the biggest single foreign investment, as well as Hyundai Rotem’s railroad and hydrogen train development cooperation related to Saudi’s NEOM city project.

The CEO of NEOM has confirmed that 30,000 of the employees in NEOM are subjected to a strict strategy for securing information and data. Nadhmi Al-Nasr made the remarks while describing the features of cybersecurity in NEOM during the 2nd edition of the Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s upcoming mega project ‘THE LINE’ is now under construction. The 170-kilometre linear city, which is being built in the kingdom’s north-west Tabuk province, saw excavators digging a wide trench in the desert. THE LINE, which will have a mirror façade, is set to be 500 metres tall, accommodating nine million people and will be built on a footprint of 34 square kilometres.

Saudi Arabia is working with Lazard Ltd. as it considers how it will pay for NEOM, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious $500 billion plan for a high-tech desert city, people familiar with the matter said. 

The New York-based investment bank is helping the kingdom evaluate financing options, including debt sales and a potential initial public offering on the Saudi stock exchange, according to the people. 

Saudi Arabia’s $500-billion megaproject NEOM is negotiating with entities to invest $20 billion to develop its planned brine chemicals complex in the industrial city OXAGON, according to a report.  Citing a close source familiar with the matter, MEED reported that the development will be built in phases and require somewhere between $15 billion to $20 billion in investments.