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Kuwait City, May 23: The State of Kuwait is seeking to play a key role in promoting pan-GCC economic integration and sustainable development of regional countries through the GCC Railway mega-project. Strategically located at the northernmost tip of the Gulf, Kuwait hopes to become a commercial and transportation hub for the region and expects high cargo and passenger traffic on the train.
The planned railway is 2,217 kilometers long and extends from Kuwait via the Salwa border exit to Dammam (Saudi Arabia), Bahrain and Qatar. The route also extends from Saudi Arabia via Sahar to Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Muscat, the Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council said on its official website. This large-scale project was first proposed at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit held in Bahrain in 2009, proposing to connect the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states through a network, aiming to promote trade and citizen mobility between the Gulf Cooperation Council and support joint enterprises in line with the trade integration strategy.
The Kuwait Public Authority for Roads and Transport (PART) has been tasked with coordinating with relevant ministries to oversee the project (Kuwait portion), which has benefits including cuts in road renovation expenditures and reduced fuel emissions. The project is also expected to create new jobs and urban areas. Speaking to KUNA, Khaled Al-Osaimi, Director General of PART, said the Cooperation Projects Authority has been tasked with conducting the study and implementing the project. The feasibility study was completed in 2012 and revised in 2016, laying out the methodology for public and private sector collaboration to implement the project.
Al-Osaimi said that many international consulting companies have submitted bids, which will be transferred to the Central Public Tendering Agency after review, as the review of bids will last for several months, indicating that the implementation of the Kuwaiti section of the network should be completed by 2030. The first section of Kuwait Railway extends from the southern border town of Al-Nuwaiseeb in Kuwait to Al-Shedadiah. The train running speed is set at 200 km/h. In the UAE, the construction of the railway to the Saudi border has been completed.
In April, Galfar Engineering announced it had won a $3 billion project to design and build a 303-kilometre railway linking Abu Dhabi and Sahar, Oman. Emirates news agency WAM quoted Energy and Infrastructure Minister Suhail Al-Mazroui as saying that the Al-Hafeet Railway complements the GCC railway network and is a path to economic consolidation of the GCC countries. Qatari authorities have completed the design of the domestic section of the Gulf Railway, and Bahrain has announced that it will build a section of the railway over a bridge to Saudi Arabia. Last February, Mohammad Al-Shabrami, the director of the Gulf Rail Authority, visited Kuwait and inspected the implementation plan of the railway in the country. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia agreed on June 4, 2023 to build a railway between Kuwait and Riyadh. The upcoming high-speed train will cover this long distance in approximately two and a half hours. The Kuwaiti government announced in February that it had begun studying the Kuwait-Saudi project. Agility CEO Tareq Al-Sultan also told Kuwait News Agency that the Riyadh-Kuwait railway line will become a branch of the public train network. (Kuwait News Agency)
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