A joint venture of Belgium’s Besix Group and Midmac Contracting has been awarded a $740-million contract to build the Doha Convention Center & Tower in Qatar. Besix’s share in the contract is $370 million, according to Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), which has a 50 per cent stake in the group.
Final designs of the seaport at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have been completed. The blueprints were designed by the project’s developer Emaar the Economic City (EEC), in coordination with Halcrow.
Green HQ wins two awardsDaikin Australia’s (DAS) new $5-10 million head office in Sydney, which was designed by Martin McGrane Architects, has won the New South Wales Master Builders Association (MBA) 2008 Excellence in Construction Award for the category of commercial buildings, as well as the National 2008 Commercial/ Industrial Construction Aw
Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Company (XCMG), China’s foremost manufacturer of construction machinery, has boosted its Saudi operations on the back of booming business.
Bahrain's construction industry is bracing for a major slump, owing to the global economic crisis, acording to A A Nass group managing director Samir Nass. The construction sector would be hit hard by the second half of this year, he said.Though the prices of building materials have come down, many other costs have gone up, said Nass.
LG Electronics has won a major contract to supply a complete air-conditioning system for a five-star hotel in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. The hotel is part of a multi-billion-dollar development currently under way in the holy city, and the air-conditioners will be supplied through H G Ibrahim Shaker Company, LG’s distributor in Saudi Arabia.
Egyptian concrete batching plant specialist Grand Industries expects to do brisk business in 2009 despite tighter margins and inflationary pressures.
Dredging and excavation work on a QR16-billion ($4.3 billion) deep-water port at Mesaieed in Qatar will begin next year, according to press reports. Craig Holland, vice-president of Aecom, the programme and construction manager for the New Doha Port Project, said that a great deal of construction activity would be seen in 2011.
Work on the multi-billion-dollar Qatar-Bahrain Causeway, originally due to begin last month has been delayed. Also known as the Friendship Bridge, the 40-km causeway is being delayed as costs are recalculated and designs further tweaked, according to reports.
A joint venture of Saudi Binladin Group and Thales has been granted a SR2 billion ($534 million) contract by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for work on the North-South Railway Project (NSRP).
