Alwaleed in talks to build $8bn ‘Disney Bahrain’
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is in talks with investors to build an $8bn Disneyland theme park in Bahrain, at the heart of the world’s biggest oil exporting region, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The project would be based on Walt Disney Co’s theme parks and could be called “Disney Bahrain,” Bahrain’s Al Waqt newspaper said. The report did not make clear whether the US company was directly involved in the talks to build the first Disney theme park in the Gulf, where incomes have surged after a tripling of oil prices in the five years to last July.
Alwaleed, the world’s eighth richest man, is talking to investors including Kuwait Finance House, the Gulf’s second largest Islamic bank by market value, and Bahraini institutions, the paper said.
Alwaleed indirectly owns 10 per cent of Disneyland Paris operator Euro Disney, and his Rotana Audio Visual Co, signed a deal in November to distribute Walt Disney products across the Middle East and North Africa.
A spokeswoman for the prince could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Kuwait Finance House in Bahrain declined to either confirm or deny the report. A spokeswoman for Bahrain’s Economic Development Board and a spokesman for the state-owned Mumtalakat Holding Company said they had not heard of the deal.
“The founding committee has undertaken a study … and has found the region is in great need of a project for family entertainment,” the paper said, citing the source. The park would cover 16 million square metres with work expected to start in May and take six years to complete, it said.
Disney has 11 theme parks worldwide and has said it wants to build one in Shanghai to tap growing wealth created by China’s economic boom. Economies of the six Gulf states are surging as governments spend windfall oil revenues.-Reuters
Chitra Mogul
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