Infrastructure work at world's tallest tower in Saudi Arabia to complete next year: CEO.

Infrastructure development work at the site of the world's next tallest tower in Jeddah is ongoing and should complete by the middle of next year, a top executive of the project's developer said recently.

Mounib Hammoud, Chief Executive Officer of Jeddah Economic Company (JEC) said construction work on the 1000-metre tall Jeddah Tower is "ongoing" and is currently in the "infrastructure" development stage, while speaking at a panel discussion during the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) 2018 Annual Conference in Dubai.

"The project is heading into infrastructure [stage], which should finish hopefully in mid next-year," said Hammoud, responding to a question posed by a member of the audience. He didn't elaborate on the overall timetable for the project, which was initially due to complete this year.

In January, Reuters reported that the 620 million Saudi riyals ($165 million) infrastructure works contract for the project was awarded to local company Al-Fouzan General Contracting with a 12-month completion timeline, signaling the project would go ahead despite a weak economy.

In response to a question posed by the panel moderator on political and economic factors impacting mega projects, the JEC chief said he believed the economic cycle in Saudi Arabia is bottoming out.

"I think we are at the bottom of the cycle from the economic perspective, and I think starting next year, things will definitely improve," Hammoud said.

|Jeddah Tower, which forms the centrepiece of $20 billion Jeddah Economic City master development in the north of Jeddah, has been nearly eight years in the making. The main contract was awarded to Saudi Bin Ladin in August 2011 with completion scheduled for 2018. However, above-ground construction only started in April 2014, with completion timeline pushed back to 2019 and thereafter to 2020.

A Reuters report in February quoted Hammoud as saying the $1.5 billion project would "hopefully" be open for business by 2020. He said construction was going ahead despite a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown impacting the heads of two of the project's main backers, Kingdom Holding, which has a 33 percent stake, and Saudi Binladin Group, which has 16.6 percent stake in the project.

The Reuters report also noted that construction had reached the 63rd floor and the superstructure - the concrete shell and the cladding - is to be completed in 2019.

In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Saudi government ordered some senior managers of Kingdom Holding to leave Jeddah Tower to work instead on construction of the Neom megaproject launched late last year.

The Saudi government subsequently acquired management control of Saudi Binladin group with a 35 percent stake in the construction company, according to a Reuters report in May.

Jeddah Tower, formerly known as Kingdom Tower, has been designed by the Chicago-headquartered firm of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. When completed, it will be 172 metres taller than the 828-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the current title holder of the world's tallest building.

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