Saudi Arabia has announced key decisions related to the largest allocation process for the country's mining reserve sites, including 54 of them spread over a 4000 sq km area, as part of its efforts to develop this sector under the Vision 2030 programme, reported SPA.

Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar bin Ibrahim Al Khorayef said these sites have been distributed in the regions of Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, Asir, Hail and Najran, where 12 each were allocated to gold ore and copper ore, 9 sites for rare earth elements, 7 for silver ore, 5 for zinc ore, 3 for lead ore, two each for iron ore and quartz ore besides one each for site for tin ore and molybdenum ore.

By identifying these mining sites in various regions of the kingdom, the ministry could achieve a number of goals, including providing the attractive investment environment, providing the data needed by the private sector in this field, and offering opportunities for local and international companies to invest in the utilization of mineral resources, reported SPA.

The Saudi Geological Survey plans to start detailed exploration of the aforementioned mining reservoirs and conduct many detailed studies on it and then make modeling for them and calculate the mineralized sources for each reservoir and site to be presented later as investment opportunities, it added.