Saudi Arabia's NEOM is a futuristic city under construction, dedicated to creating an unprecedented urban living experience and a model of sustainable development. Under the historic opportunity of the deep alignment between China's Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Vision 2030, this future city—vast in scale and avant-garde in concept—is gradually becoming a reality on the shores of the Red Sea.

Located in Tabuk Province in northwestern Saudi Arabia, NEOM is one of the largest projects currently under construction, with a total investment of US$500 billion and a footprint of 26,500 square kilometers. It comprises multiple regions including The Line, the Clean Industry and Innovation City, and the Eco-Tourism City, and will be powered entirely by renewable energy. Among these, the major excavation works reach a weekly excavation volume of 2 million cubic meters; The Line alone has already used five times the amount of concrete in Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower and six times the steel used in the Eiffel Tower.

One of the flagship projects of NEOM is The Line, a linear city 170 kilometers long, 500 meters high, and 200 meters wide, with an exterior wall clad in mirrored glass. Residents can reach daily necessities within a five-minute walk, and an efficient public transit network keeps residents' one-way commutes within the city under 20 minutes. The city has zero cars, zero roads, and zero emissions; therefore, the city's underground tunnels will be the lifeline for all personnel and cargo transport in The Line. The tunnel side-adit project undertaken by a Chinese company is the starting point for opening up this transport lifeline and is the most important part of NEOM's transportation system.

The tunnel side-adit project has a total of 6 portal entrances. Once these 6 working faces are opened up, they can provide a favorable working environment for the excavation of the 26-kilometer main tunnel. As of August 2023, the drilling and blasting work for 4 adits and the overall handover have been successfully completed.

Building a new city in a desolate desert is an entirely new challenge for companies like China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) that are among the first batch of participants in the construction. Many pieces of equipment required for the project come from China; once certain parts are lost or damaged, they must be shipped over from China.

In the early stages of the project, Chinese engineers and technicians found it difficult to adapt to the British-standard construction system proposed by the client and encountered many difficulties. By understanding the client's needs and learning from the supervision consultants, they quickly recognized their shortcomings and made improvements, and now the project is progressing very smoothly. Among all contractors, CRCC has ranked at the top every month for the past six months and has received the client's Million Production Hours Honor Certificate for two consecutive years.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has continued to promote its national economic transformation to reduce its dependence on oil. According to the plan, NEOM will be powered entirely by renewable energy, and 95% of its area will be designated as nature reserves.

In terms of environmental protection, NEOM's planning covers more than 15 aspects, including the protection of air, soil, and water resources. The project uses solar-powered streetlights and water heaters, and collects used domestic wastewater for treatment and reuse. In addition, activities are organized to encourage everyone from management to workers to participate in waste collection, aiming to make all aware of the importance of protecting the environment for the next generation.

Through the efforts of Chinese enterprises such as CRCC, many Chinese standards, technologies, and experiences adopted in the construction of NEOM are gradually being recognized by the client and counterparts from other countries. The main equipment used in CRCC's NEOM tunnel side-adit project includes wet shotcrete machines and three-boom rock drilling jumbos, all independently developed by CRCC Heavy Industry. The three-boom rock drilling jumbos have played a crucial role in the project's construction, so the Korean and Spanish subcontractors for the main tunnel also decided to adopt this equipment.

Guided by the Belt and Road Initiative, CRCC's tunnel side-adit project is not only committed to opening up NEOM's transport lifeline but also provides an important window for strengthening the emotional bonds of people-to-people connectivity between China and Saudi Arabia and even among people around the world. Many foreign employees, by studying and working at a Chinese company, have made their own contributions to the changes in Tabuk and have deepened their ties with China. Such emotional bonds will help strengthen friendly relations between China and Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and promote mutual understanding and exchange among people around the world. Keywords: Belt and Road projects, central enterprise engineering news

As the NEOM project advances in depth, CRCC's technology and experience will also set a new benchmark for the global construction industry. In the future, cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia will become even closer, jointly driving the development and progress of the global construction industry.