Pecsa, a joint venture between South Korea's Posco Engineering & Construction Company and Saudi Public Investment Fund  (PIF), said it has been awarded a $900-million contract to build five hotel towers in the Madinah region of the kingdom.

These four-star hotel towers, with a combined total of 3,070 rooms, will come up on a 350,000-sq-m area as part of a commercial and residential project being developed by Saudi Company for Real Estate Development & Investment (Dar Alhijrah).

The hotel complex will partly accommodate tens of thousands of pilgrims to the holy mosque in Madinah each year, said Mohammed Almazyad, the chairman of the foundation and supervision committee of Dar Alhijrah and Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Finance, after signing the deal with Myungju Choi, the chief executive of Pecsa.

The construction on the project will begin soon and is due for completion in the next two-and-half years.

PIF, the government arm in charge of diversifying the investments of the national economy of Saudi Arabia through Saudi Vision 2030, had established Pecsa by partnering with the Korean engineering and construction giant to bring advanced technologies, expertise, and technical know-how into the kingdom.

Pecsa is actively pursuing participation in various engineering and construction fields such as urban development, housing and infrastructure construction to keep pace with Saudi Vision 2030, remarked Choi.

Once the Madinah Al Monawara Package 4A project gets completed, it will help tackle the accommodation shortage problem being faced by the pilgrims pouring into Madinah city for Hajj, he noted.

Pecsa is currently assessing its priorities for joining the Madinah Hajj City project which is aimed at expanding the capacity of the holy town to accommodate 30 million pilgrims from the current eight million.-TradeArabia News Service