KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s ambitious plan to build a $100bn megacity comprising a free trade zone, a deep-sea port and an airport in the North just 30 minutes’ drive from the capital Kuwait City has run into rough weather.
Lawmakers have raised a hue and cry over the $86bn project which will also boast an Olympic stadium, a tower taller than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, and housing for some 700,000 people.
According to a draft legislation, ‘Silk City’ will have legal, financial and administrative independence in a model similar to the Dubai International Financial Centre which offers tax exemptions and has its own judicial system but MPs in the country’s powerful elected assembly have revolted, saying this will create a state within the state.
“It was a creation of a state within the state. It is the most dangerous law I have ever seen,” parliamentarian Safa al-Hashem told reporters after Deputy Premier Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, met her and other members of a parliamentary committee recently.
Though Nasser has argued that the megacity will diversify the Gulf Arab state’s economy away from oil, attract foreign investment and cement trade links with Iraq, Iran and China, MPs fear the project to be completed over 25 years will falloutside of their jurisdiction, claiming that the laws governing Silk City could be completely different to those followed in the country.
Some lawmakers have even objected to Kuwait emulating ‘new’ cities like Dubai, the Gulf’s freewheeling business and tourism hub, and bypassing a constitution where the Islamic law is the man source of legislation.
“In its nature and identity, Kuwait is Arab, Islamic and predominantly conservative”, Islamist MP Mohammed al-Dallal, said, adding that there must be no irresponsible openness, like allowing alcohol in the Muslim country.
As part of the project encompassing five islands and a northern territory, Kuwait last week inaugurated a $3.6-billion causeway, the world’s fourth longest sea bridge, connecting Kuwait City to Subiya in sparsely-populated North, where the megacity is being built.
About 80 per cent of the 36-km Sheikh Jaber Causeway, named after the late Sheikh Jaber Al Sabah who reigned during the Gulf War, is over water and is Kuwait’s largest construction feat to date and has kicked off the country’s economic reform measures titled Kuwait 2035.
If Nasser, who is also the defence minister, is to be believed, ‘Silk City’ will create 200,000 jobs and will compete with Kuwait’s similar oil-dependent neighbours like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates which have become regional business hubs.