Leading Chinese firms - China Harbour Engineering Company and Sichuan Construction Engineering Group - are set to start work on a 130-km road linking Abha in Saudi Arabia’s Aseer province with Jazan, in a project valued at SAR19 billion ($5 billion), said a top official of Asir Development Authority.

The project scope includes construction of 26 bridges and tunnels as well as key infrastructure for multimodal transport systems, it stated.

The project forms part of broader transport development plans in the region, including efforts to connect Abha, Khamis Mushait and Al-Majardah under the “Greater Abha” initiative, also known as “Living Heritage”, aimed at serving nearly half of Aseer’s population and improving regional connectivity.

The road is expected to cut travel time between the two cities to around 90 minutes from three hours and will include major engineering works such as 26 bridges and tunnels, said Abdul Qader Othman Amir, executive vice president for technical affairs at the Asir Development Authority.

The total cost could rise to about SAR39 billion ($10.4 billion) if implemented under a build-operate-transfer model, he added.

Additional initiatives include linking Bisha to the kingdom’s railway network and expanding multimodal transport systems to ease congestion, particularly during peak seasons.

In August last year, the Roads General Authority, the National Centre for Privatisation and the Asir Development Authority pre-qualified five consortiums for the highway project, which is being tendered as a 30-year design-build-finance-operate-maintain contract.