According to a report by Arab News, the Saudi Industrial Property Authority launched the project earlier this month in Yanbu.
At first, an all-female factory will be set up in the city, employing 50 Saudi women in producing garments, gold and jewelry, dates, medical supplies, packaging services, toys, or traditional handicrafts, as part of a Saudi administrative strategy to diversify income sources in the kingdom.
If everything goes according to plan, more female-only plants will be built over an area of 500,000 square meters. The complex will include a medical center, sports center, recreational area, park, government building, shopping center, hotel and gas station.
Convenient public transportation, nurseries and training institutes will serve the employees of the plant.
Meanwhile, Saudi authorities have always threatened that women who attempt to drive a car in the kingdom will face immediate arrest. This is while some Saudi female drivers have videotaped themselves driving in different cities in the Persian Gulf state.
Saudi police put up checkpoints in some parts of Riyadh and there appeared to be more traffic patrols than usual on the streets of the capital - the latest sign of the sensitivity of the issue in the ultra-conservative Arab kingdom.
NTJ/MB