PIF Sets Up Gulf Coast Company for Al-Khafji Housing and Tourism Project
Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund will build a 20 sq km tourism and residential destination on the Al-Khafji coast, with the first phase due by 2030.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund launched the Gulf Coast Development Company on Monday. The new company will build an integrated tourist and residential destination on the Al-Khafji coast, a strip of the Gulf shoreline in the Eastern Province near Kuwait.
The site covers approximately 20 square kilometers and includes a 10-kilometer waterfront. PIF said the destination will be developed with the private sector and is meant to bring local and regional investors into the project.
The master plan calls for eight residential neighborhoods. More than 16,000 housing units are planned, alongside roughly 1,400 hotel keys. Public facilities will cover commercial, tourism, and educational uses, and dedicated boat marinas are included along the coast.
Construction has been arranged in three phases. The first phase is scheduled for completion by 2030. It will contain three neighborhoods and is intended to form the core of a fully integrated tourism-residential community rather than a cluster of buildings waiting for the rest of the plan to catch up.
Al-Khafji sits in the northern part of the Eastern Province, where demand for accommodation and tourism has been growing. Its position close to Kuwait gives it a natural catchment that extends to other Gulf Arab states as well as Saudi Arabia's domestic market. A development this size is expected to create employment and business openings for people living around the town, including work tied to construction and later to hotels, shops, and services.
The new company sits within PIF's Urban Development and Livability ecosystem, one of six ecosystems the fund laid out in its 2026-2030 strategy. That ecosystem is designed to create people-centered and sustainable cities through coordinated investment. Placing a project of this scale at Al-Khafji is a test of whether that approach can work on a northern Gulf coast that has not been a primary tourism hub.
Saad Alkroud, head of local real estate investments at PIF, said the fund's local real estate projects are meant to strengthen strategic sectors and deepen their integration with the six ecosystems. He also said those projects give the private sector a stronger role as an effective partner in economic growth.
The 2030 date for the first phase leaves room for infrastructure, financing, and permitting to be completed before the first neighborhoods open. How Al-Khafji develops will show whether a large coastal project can move beyond residential plots and become a functioning mixed-use community.
