Saudi Arabia 'to shelve, reform billions of dollars of unfinished projects': sources

Riyadh

SAUDI Arabia's government is ordering its ministries and agencies to review billions of dollars' worth of unfinished infrastructure and economic development projects with a view to shelving or restructuring them, government sources said.

Riyadh's Bureau of Capital and Operational Spending Rationalization, set up last year to make the government more efficient, is compiling a list of projects that are under 25 per cent complete, the sources told Reuters.

Many of these projects are relics of a decade-long boom of high oil prices and lavish state spending, which ended when oil began sliding in mid-2014, making it increasingly difficult for Riyadh to find the money …