Since the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz acquired the reins of power, the Kingdom witnessed a boom in development at the level of industrial cities, "MODON", there was unrivaled incomparable shift. For over 30 years before he took over the power, the number of industrial cities in the Kingdom was 14 industrial cities supervised by MODON and two cities supervised by the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. In light of directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and his sharp vision to make the industry a strategic choice to diversify sources of income, the industrial cities have been doubled, both in terms of developed area and in terms of the number. MODON witnessed expansion projects for Riyadh 2nd Industrial City, Dammam 2nd industrial city, Madina industrial city, Ha'il industrial City and Assir Industrial City. MODON did not stop at the expansion and rehabilitation of the existing cities, but also sought to establish new cities in different regions of the Kingdom, whereas in 2009, MODON established four new cities, including Jeddah 2nd., Al-Kharj, Ar’ar and Jazan. In 2010, industrial cities were established in Sudair, Taif, Zulfi, Baha, Riyadh 3rd. in Alha'ir and city for pharmaceutical industries in Al-Uyaynah, shaqraa' and Hafr Albatin. In the past three years 12 industrial cities have been established, thereby increasing the number to 26 industrial cities.

Under the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, as well, MODON did not stop at this point, as it has begun planning and designing new cities, where it has started designing and planning works for Dammam 3rd., Jeddah 3rd., Jeddah 4th., Salwa, Al-Ahsa 2nd., Qassim 2nd; in addition to expansion of Sudair and Al-Kharj. Thus, the number of industrial cities overseen by MODON will reach 32 industrial cities, whereas the area of the expansions and the new cities will add a total of 86 million square meters of the developed land.
 
This achievement also becomes clear in terms of area of the existing cities and new cities where the developed area in the industrial cities before the era of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques was 40 million square meters, while the developed area will reach 80 million square meters at the end of 2011.

In terms of number of factories, the manufacturing factories were nearly 1500 factories, whereas, now the number has doubled and became 3 thousand factories with investments amounting to more than 250 billion riyals.

During his reign, may God protect him, the Eighth Development Plan was adopted on the nineteenth of Shawwal in 1426H, which included raising the standard of living, improving the quality of life, provision of job opportunities for citizens, development of human resource through continued development of education, training and acquisition of skills and expansion of applied and technical sciences, also increase the contribution of the private sector in economic and social development by increasing participation of Saudi women and removing barriers to increasing their participation in economic and developmental activities.

Furthermore, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques implemented steps which had positive impact on the industry, including:
1. Adoption of a national strategy for the industry, which aims to raise the industry proportion in the GDP from 11% in 2009 to 20% in 2020 and consequently, the Kingdom is moving steadily towards diversified sources of economy and sustainable development.
2. The Kingdom's accession to the WTO. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has enacted more than 70 different legislations in order to become an active member of the World Trade Organization. This, in turn, led to a change in the economic sphere in the Kingdom in many aspects and the kingdom’s role in the international economic scene became very important. Why not, the Kingdom is the only country in the Middle East which has a membership of G-20 group. This provided the Kingdom a tremendous force.
3. Raising the capital of the Industrial Development Fund to 30 billion riyals.
4. Reducing the gasoline price to be 60 halalas instead of 90 halalas in order to improve the standard of living of the citizens. The Royal Order stipulated to modify the price of a liter of gasoline octane 91 for the consumer to be 60 halalas instead of 82 halalas and the price of a liter of gasoline octane 95 for the consumer to be 75 halalas instead of one riyal and 2 halalas.
5. Reducing the price of diesel for the consumer to be 25 halalas per liter instead of 37 halalas. This decision reflected in the transport and distribution services and energy prices, which concern all the factories in terms of the reduced cost of production and marketing.

The following table illustrates the size of some of the new cities (Area in million square meters):

MODON gave importance to establish new cities and expand the existing ones as a result of the high demand from businessmen and industrialists to establish industrial projects in the cities supervised by MODON. These new areas will cover all the needs for industrial lands in the major and minor cities. It is to be noted that all regions of the Kingdom are interested in MODON as it had previously established or developed industrial cities in the less developed regions, where, according to its strategic plan, MODON seeks to contribute to the development of the less developed regions by establishing new industrial cities in various regions of the Kingdom, which constitute to accommodate industrial projects and provide job opportunities to the citizens, while utilizing raw materials and mineral wealth acquired by various regions of our country. This would be an attractive environment for domestic and international investments.

It is worth mentioning, that MODON currently oversees industrial cities existing in different regions of Saudi Arabia (Riyadh 1st. and 2nd., Jeddah 1st. and 2nd., Dammam 1st. and 2nd., Makkah, Madinah, Qassim, Al-Ahsa, Assir, Al-Jouf, Tabuk, Hail, Najran, Jazan, Al-Kharj and Ar’ar, in addition to Sudair City for Industry and Business and Rabigh complex for plastic industries). The industrial cities are regarded as the infrastructure to accommodate industrial projects which have contributed to the accommodation of 3 thousand industrial projects, which represent 60% of the Saudi factories with investments exceeding 250 billion riyals. MODON receives the applications for obtaining land, electronically through its website, where land is available for industrial projects, residential uses, commercial activities and marketing exhibitions, services centers and public facilities that provide its services at promotional prices, which provides multiple options to all local businessmen, Gulf and foreign businessmen to invest in various available opportunities, whether in industrial, residential, commercial or service sectors.