US-BASED food giant Mondelez International has laid the cornerstone for the construction of its new $90-million biscuit plant in Bahrain.

TEN construction companies have submitted technical offers for packages seven, eight and nine of Oman’s ambitious Al Batinah Expressway project, which is divided into a total of 11 packages. Four firms have submitted offers for all the packages.

QATAR’S ambitious Sharq Crossing Project, the 12-km series of underwater tunnel and bridges connecting key centres of capital Doha, has failed to find its place in the government’s priority list for the 2022 Fifa World Cup, said a report.

OMAN is planning to float tenders for building two more segments of the railway network this year, even as design for the entire network will be ready by the year-end, said a senior official of Oman Railway Company (ORC).

A DESERT oasis of hotels, resorts and shopping malls and family attractions is being planned on underused land in the southern half of Bahrain.

WORK is set to begin this year on a centre dedicated to disabled people in Bahrain, said a top official of the Works, Municipalities and Urban Planning Ministry. To be funded by the Kuwaiti Economic Development Fund, the centre will be built in A’Ali at a cost of BD7.4 million ($19.6 million), said Minister Essam Khalaf.

MUSHRIF Trading and Contracting, one of the leading civil construction companies in the region, has won a civil works contract for the expansion of Mina Abdullah Refinery in Kuwait. The KD4.26-million ($14.46 million) contract was awarded by BV-Kuwait, a consultant of leading engineering and construction company Fluor Corporation, said Mushrif.

THE construction work on a new interchange along Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Highway in Bahrain is progressing as per schedule, according to the Ministry of Works.

OMAN’S housing ministry is set to award construction contracts for the second phase of a new RO500-million ($1.3 billion) city coming up in the northern Liwa province of the sultanate, said a report.

Napco acquires powder coating line NATIONAL Aluminium Products Company (Napco), one of the leading extruders of aluminium profiles in the GCC, has announced the acquisition of a new vertical powder coating line to meet the growing demand for high production aluminium-based powder coating systems in the region.

A NUMBER of new hospitals within the Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City under construction in Qatar are expected to be completed and fully equipped by the middle of this year, the country’s Public Works Authority Ashghal said. The new QR2.

THE infrastructure projects pipeline in Qatar is set to expand this year with the awarding of over $30 billion worth of new deals including the Doha Metro, said a report.

OMRAN, the tourism development and investment company of Oman, has awarded the multi-disciplinary team led by Allies and Morrison, the consultancy contract for its Al Irfan Urban Development project, which will create a new downtown area for the Muscat capital district. The new mixed-use project will be located on a site extending to over 7.

QATAR University has awarded the design, build and operational contract for its BSL-3 Select Agent Laboratory, a first-of-its-kind research laboratory in the region, to Working Buildings Companies, based in Georgia, US.

AT LEAST three train stations will be built in Bahrain that will be connected to the GCC railway network. Bahrain will be connected to the grid through a station in Dammam, via the King Fahad Causeway, that will also be connected to Kuwait, Qatar and north-west of Saudi Arabia.

A FEASIBILITY study into the construction of a second causeway between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which will include the first rail link to Bahrain, will be completed in the first quarter of this year.

REYNAERS Middle East indicates that the company achieved record sales in Egypt compared to the 10 countries in its Middle East portfolio. Since the launch of its operations in the capital Cairo a few years back, Reynaers Aluminium, the European aluminium systems supplier, has seen a continuous upward growth with regard to business development.