Commendable developments have materialized

Four new economic cities are planned. King Abdullah economic city is being built along a barren strip of Red Sea coastline, an hour's drive north of Jeddah. By 2009 this city will take skeletal shape. In the first phase the residential area will have 14000 villas and 108000 apartments. Factories will surround residential enclaves. A railway line will be built to connect Jeddah port and King Abdullah city with capital Riyadh. One of the important aim of the four cities plan is to create 1.3 million jobs. Overtime four million jobs will be created. This huge employment plan will cost another six hundred billion dollars. With big oil money, Saudi's think big. Six huge aluminium smelters are being built. Aluminium consumption by industrial countries is exceedingly high, while aluminium production is low. Saudi Arabia hopes to become the biggest aluminium producer in the world. Earnings from aluminium sale are expected to be huge. Oil production is planned to be cut down, as aluminium sales heatup.
Presently there are eight million expatriate workers in the kingdom. They are mostly in the construction industry. As engineers and workers the Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Cylonese, Philipino's and Koreans construct and maintain housing including high rises. Most taxi drivers in Saudi Arabia are Pakistani's. Saudi families prefer Pakistani drivers even to Saudi drivers. Hundreds of Pakistani doctor are employed in Saudi hospitals and medical facilities. And Pakistani engineers are working as civil, mechanical and electrical engineers in government and private institutions. Some of them have been in Saudi Arabia for years. Their rich experience should be utilized for closer ties with Saudi Arabia in related fields.
Saudisation policy aims at white-collar jobs for Saudi men and women. Saudi education policy has been liberalized by emphasis on science and technology. Girl schools and women colleges are imparting modern education in medicine, engineering, banking, nursing, and IT to the Saudi females. Under king Abdullah Saudi Arabia is expected to make a leap forward in education, social progress, technology, and industry. Saudi Arabia is being educated and industrialized at a fast pace. And this is good for Saudi Arabia and for the Islamic world, which hopes to benefit from Saudi progress. Islam demands and Muslims hope that Saudi Arabia shares its wealth with poor Muslim countries. Palestine, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan are in urgent need of funds. In these Muslim countries forty percent of the population is below the poverty level. The per capita income in Saudi Arabia is above dollar fifty thousand per head. In these poor Muslim countries it is about Dollars four hundred per head. This is a huge disparity. Even the budget of an oil company like ARAMCO in Damam Saudi Arabia is more than the combined budget of the above countries. A writer can only appeal to an exalted ruler and his rich people to share their immense wealth with the poor Muslim countries. Benazir Bhutto before her death wrote a book titled "Reconciliation", in which she has appealed for sharing of wealth among Muslims in the true spirit of Islam. I request my Saudi brothers and sisters to read her book, which was completed only two days before her assassination, and share wealth not as Zakat, but under a well formulated policy to educate Muslim masses, and put them to work for the good of their respective countries. Such help under a wise policy will pull the Muslims out of the misery of poverty and despair.