The pipeline of water PPP projects in Saudi Arabia is well documented. What is less visible, but equally important, is the system built to receive the developers, contractors, and financiers being invited to participate in it. Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia has systematically reformed the way global companies enter its water market: legally, administratively, and digitally. The result is a market entry process that is now as structured as the projects themselves.
The scale is significant. With $105bn (SAR 394bn) committed across approximately 3,300 projects in the Kingdom’s water ecosystem, Saudi Arabia’s water infrastructure is among the largest in the world – a combined capacity of 16.6M m³/day, driven by rapid urban and industrial growth in a country with one of the most acute water scarcity profiles in the world.
Entering a new market is not without friction for international developers: setting up legal presence, submitting credentials, and navigating procurement can all prove time intensive. Saudi Arabia has spent the past several years systematically dismantling those barriers through policy reform, digitisation, and structural improvement. In the water sector, the result has been visible. What was once a fragmented entry process is now coordinated, streamlined system.
From fragmentation to integration
Several authorities play distinct but complementary roles in Saudi Arabia’s water ecosystem, all operating under the National Water Strategy 2030. The Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture (MEWA) set overall sector policy, while the Saudi Water Authority (SWA) leads the regulatory and supervisory framework for the water sector. Within this ecosystem, SHARAKAT (previously known as SWPC), acts as the principal water offtaker and lead procurement and tendering platform for PPP projects across multiple asset classes, providing the sovereign-backed framework through which private developers engage with the market. What was once a fragmented entry process is now a coordinated, streamlined system.
The PSP Law
Before 2021, PPP projects in Saudi Arabia operated under general procurement law requiring developers to navigate multiple approval routes, submit qualifications separately for each project and work with limited visibility on timelines. The Private Sector Participation (PSP) Law, enacted in March 2021, changed that. It provided Saudi Arabia’s first comprehensive, dedicated legal framework for private sector participation across infrastructure sectors, including water.
For developers and financiers, the law established a predictable, standardised procurement sequence – from project identification to award – with defined steps, published timelines and consistent application across all projects. The law also introduced legal protection that matters to developers and financiers safeguarding around ownership rights, protection from non-interference, and a level playing field for local and international developers alike.
Saudi Arabia’s water PPP programme has been active for over two decades and the sector’s growth has been considerable. With the National Water Strategy 2030 targeting $64bn (SAR 204bn) in private investment across the water sector, the scale of what needed governing had grown well beyond what general procurement law was designed to handle. The PSP Law was a regulatory response and a signal of the sector’s maturity and the seriousness of its ambitions.
Saudi Business Centre
Establishing a legal presence in the Kingdom has been simplified through the Saudi business Centre – officially established in 2019, with full-scale operations commencing in 2020 – a unified government platform operating in partnership with over 60 government entities. Commercial registrations, licensing, permits, and approvals are handled in one place, through a digital platform that allows foreign developers to submit all documentation remotely. Since launch, the centre has processed over 13 million business services, most of them digitally to help remove any administrative delay.
SHARAKAT’s Supplier Portal & Developer Qualification Initiative
SHARAKAT’s Supplier Portal gives suppliers and consultants an online platform to expand networks and identify potential partners, strengthening collaboration opportunities across the project ecosystem. Whether entering the market for the first time or building on an existing presence, suppliers and consultants can register directly through www.sharakat.com.sa/en/suppliers-registration/
In 2024, SHARAKAT launched the Developer Qualification Initiative, designed to raise awareness of privatisation mechanisms and contractual models. This also aims to broaden contractor participation in future water sector projects. Since its launch, around 500 companies have expressed interest, with over 36% successfully transitioning from EPC contractor to developer – a meaningful signal of the depth of contractor capability entering the PPP market.
SHARAKAT’s Pre-Qualification Programme
SHARAKAT’s Pre-Qualification Programme builds on that by replacing the project-by-project qualification model for developers bidding on IWP and ISTP projects. A total of 113 local and international companies is now pre-qualified as developers – 50 for IWP projects and 63 for ISTP projects. Under the programme, developers submit a Statement of Qualification once, SHARAKAT reviews the submission, and qualified developers are added to a list from which Request for Proposals (RFPs) are issued directly. Once qualified, developers gain direct access to RFPs across all projects without reapplying for each – reducing costs, shortening timelines, and providing visibility of other pre-qualified parties for consortium formation. In a market built on repeat participation, pre-qualification is less a gateway and more a foundation, a key to positioning across all projects, not just one.
The programme reopens periodically. The next registration window is expected to be announced in Q3 2026 through SHARAKAT’s official website, www.sharakat.com.sa and official media channels.
One ecosystem, one entry point
Taken together – the PSP Law, the Saudi Business Centre, SHARAKAT’s Supplier Portal, Developer Qualification Initiative and the Pre-Qualification Programme – these are not isolated reforms. They function as an architectural system, each element reinforcing the others, making Saudi Arabia’s water sector one of the more structured and accessible PPP markets available to global developers today.
Saudi Arabia’s water sector is not just a large opportunity but a market that has demonstrated repeatable, successful tender execution, anchored in clear entry process and an improving ease of doing business. For developers assessing where to commit capital next, the question isn’t of timing, it is one of readiness.
