Pecsa, a joint venture between South Korea’s Posco Engineering and Construction Company and Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), said it has been awarded a $900-million contract to build five hotel towers in Madinah.

The four-star hotel towers, with a combined total of 3,070 rooms, will come up on a 350,000-sq-m area as part of a commercial and residential project being developed by Saudi Real Estate Development Company (Dar Alhijrah), owned by the PIF.

The hotels are being built to cater to the increasing number of pilgrims who flock to Madinah each year, said Mohammed Almazyad, the chairman of Dar Alhijrah and Deputy Minister of Finance.

The construction on the project will begin soon and is due for completion in the next two-and-half years.

Once the Madinah Al Monawara Package 4A project is completed, it will help tackle the accommodation shortage problem being faced by the pilgrims pouring into Madinah city for Hajj, he noted.

The project is aimed at expanding the capacity of the holy town to accommodate 30 million pilgrims from the current eight million.