Emaar Economic City said it would start selling homes in a Saudi Red Sea coast development on Saturday, generating the first revenues from a project that aims to attract about $26 billion in investment.

The developer is an affiliate of Dubai-based Emaar Properties the largest Arab real estate company by market value.

The first sales will be in al-Belissan village, which is part of the 168 million sq m development, north of Jeddah, Emaar Economic City said in a statement on the Saudi stock market Web site.

It gave no details.

Emaar Economic City is developing the Red Sea coast project, known as King Abdullah Economic City, which the government says will attract 100 billion riyals ($26.7 billion) in investment, the single largest private sector project in Saudi Arabia.

The residential component of the project includes over 150,000 apartments and more than 30,000 detached and semi-detached housing units, according to Emaar Economic City's Web site.

Plans for King Abdullah Economic City include a giant port, a financial district and an industrial zone.

Emaar said in April investors had 'expressed interest' in six million square metres of land of in the industrial zone, or almost 10 percent of the total area.

Emaar Properties, which has operations in 16 countries, gets more than 80 percent of its revenue from Dubai.

The money it makes from high-margin sales of Dubai land, traditionally given virtually free by the government, has been used to fund expansion. Revenue from such sales fell 75 percent in the second quarter when Emaar missed analysts' forecasts.

The company scrapped plans last month to pay for government land with about $8 billion worth of stock, a deal that was designed to keep expansion on track until foreign projects started making money.

Shares of Emaar Economic City, which raised $680 million in an initial public offering in August of 2006, closed 4.8 percent lower on Tuesday at 15 riyals. The stock is trading 50 percent above its listing price. - Reuters