Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Economic Council, a top policy body chaired by King Abdullah, will study whether to tax undeveloped urban land as part of efforts to end a serious housing shortage in the world’s top oil exporter. Many less well-off Saudis cannot buy their homes or afford rising rents.
After social discontent prompted unrest elsewhere in the Arab world in 2011, King Abdullah announced a $67 billion plan to build 500,000 homes in the country over several years. But progress in implementing the plan has been slow, partly because of difficulties in obtaining land. Much urban land is owned by wealthy individuals or companies who prefer holding it as a store of value, or trading it for speculative profits, to the process of developing it.
