By IANS
Dubai : Water supply industry across the Middle East would attract investment of some $100 billion over the next 10 years, according to industry experts, news agency WAM reported Friday.
“Alongside power generation, water is the top priority for governments and the Middle East has one of the world’s highest demands for clean water due to high population growth rates and economic diversification,” said Sarah Woodbridge, Group Director at the Institute of International Research (IIR), Middle East.
“Conservative estimates project that in the Gulf Cooperation Council region $100bn of investment is necessary over the next 10 years to sustain continued economic growth,” she added.
The IIR is organising a four-day Water at Middle East Electricity exhibition to open here this weekend to review the outlook of the water industry in the region.
Factors like rapidly teeming population, rapid urbanisation and need for irrigation would continue to drive investment in water supply industry across the Middle East, the experts said.
In Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer of desalinated water, an estimated $53 billion is required to boost its desalination capacity to 10.7 million cubic metres per day (cmd) by 2020 to meet demand, said Abdullah Al-Husayn, Saudi Arabia’s minister of water and electricity.
The exhibition is planned as a forum where the region’s key decision makers can interface with world leading companies from water, desalination and wastewater treatment industries and gives the water industry an opportunity to evaluate a comprehensive range of products and services.