“Saudi infrastructure projects will continue,” says a leading pipes manufacturing company

Mohammed Al Hammouri, Deputy GM of Saudi Pipe Systems Co. talks about doing business in Saudi Arabia and the infrastructure.

How easy is it to do business in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia is one of the best places to do business because it is a big country and resources are plentiful. The cost of energy is low compared to other countries. I think doing business in Saudi Arabia is relatively easy.

Where do you see some of the investment opportunities?

In the infrastructure sector like pipelines for water and for sewage which is actually our field. Saudi Arabia needs a lot of work in development of infrastructure.

We understand the manufacturing industry development is a government priority and the sector has been growing faster than the oil related sectors.

The government is supporting the manufacturing industry and the industrial development of the country.

From the private sector perspective do you think mega projects and increased project spending is the right way forward?

In 1994, we saw that the infrastructure in Saudi Arabia needed a lot of development; therefore, we built our own company to capitalize on this opportunity.

In the same year, we built our own foundry to produce all sorts of ductile iron pipes, fittings, manhole covers and gratings. The manhole covers are to the customer requirements; they can be light duty or heavy duty.

In 1999, we built the GRP pipe factory, which is producing GRP pipes and fittings. The GRP pipes are made from fibreglass. They are produced up to size 2600mm. In 2000, we built our own HDPE factory, which is the high-density polyethylene pipes with the new technology from one of the biggest and most famous companies in Germany.

In 2005, we started producing the pre-insulated pipes, which support the district cooling sections. Saudi Pipe Systems (SPS) has done a lot of big projects in Saudi Arabia for example King Abdul-Aziz University and King Abdullah Economic City, the Sea Port and King Faisal University and the Jeddah Corniche and also we did the Haram in Mecca expansion in Haram and Medina.

In addition, SPS has done many projects outside of the Kingdom for example in Sudan we have done many government projects. Now we are working on the international Cairo Airport project and we have done a lot of government projects in Yemen and some projects in Africa. We have also done the Saraya Aqaba project in Jordan. Further countries SPS is present are the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

Our strategy is to open a new market outside of the Kingdom and to expand and export products to Europe, Africa and the Far East. We are not going to depend on the Middle Eastern region only.