Saudi Arabia will invest SR11.87bn ($3.16bn) to develop 6,400km of new roads in 2010, the country’s Transport Minister has said.

The investment includes the surplus from previous years and will be used to carry out a total of 316 road projects this year, including the ones launched in the past years.

Major road projects will be carried out in the Makkah, Madinah, Qassim and Riyadh provinces.

Nearly SR1.195bn ($318.7m) will be spent on building 1,721km of agricultural and branch roads.

In addition, a viability study and designing of 3,387km of express roads, double lane roads and branch roads across the country will be carried out at a cost of SR64.3m ($17.15m).

Nearly SR20m ($5.3m) will be used to carry out transportation-related studies and SR27m for information technology projects and new equipments.