Dubai monorail contract awarded

Dubai Rapid Link, a consortium of four companies headed by Mitsubishi Corp of Japan, has been awarded a Dh12.45 billion contract by Dubai Municipality to construct the Dubai Metro project.

The deal was signed by Qasim Sultan, director-general, Dubai Municipality, and Susumu Uchida, board member, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The high-tech driverless rail transit system will be built in two phases, with construction of the first phase to start in July 2005.

Completion of both phases has been scheduled for July 2009, when Dubai's Metro goes live.

The winning consortium members included Japan's Obayashi and Kajima groups, and Turkey's Yapi Merkazi.

They also won an additional Dh1.88 billion contract to maintain the project for 15 years.

Other competing consortia had included Dubai Stars who had proposed a Dh18.26 billion project, Salsabeel with Dh18.84 billion, and Metro I with Dh19.29 billion.

A full report will be available in Monday's edition of Gulf News.