KUWAIT, 2 October 2005 — Kuwait, flush with petrodollars and free from the threat of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, plans 15 billion dinars ($51 billion) worth of housing and infrastructure projects by decade’s end, the public works minister said.
Badr Al-Humaidi told Reuters these include four planned new cities to house thousands of Kuwaitis, a major causeway across the Gulf and a linked motorway, and upgrade works on key ring roads around the capital and the country’s sewage network.
A regionally-competitive commercial seaport, including a free-trade zone to serve as a link for movement of goods from Asia to the Mediterranean and beyond, are also on the cards. “We have about 15 billion dinars in housing and infrastructure projects up to 2010,” Humaidi said.
The tiny Gulf Arab state, which controls a tenth of global oil reserves, also plans to spend billions of dinars more on upgrading its lucrative energy sector and is opening up some sectors of its economy, albeit slowly, after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 Gulf War pushed away investors.
“Kuwait has now started to rise in a way to make it a commercial center in the Gulf region ... Kuwait was at the forefront in the 1970s,” Humaidi, also minister of state for housing affairs, said in an interview. “
He said four new cities are planned - designed to ease the pressure on the urban sprawl of Kuwait City. They will be self-contained, with branches of government departments, health, education, sports, commercial and entertainment services. “There is no reason for someone living there to go to the capital (to get things done) ... This will be a very big relief,” he said.
Of these, Jaber City, where works have begun, and Subiya will be north of Kuwait City, while Arifjan will be 55 km (34 miles) south of the capital and Khairan further south. Jaber City will include 13,000 homes for up to 78,000 people and be ready by end 2007 while Khairan will have 26,000 housing units.
The minister said Kuwait started the tender process for a 75-km (47-mile) motorway from the capital to the planned city of Subiya. International companies are also vying for a related project to build a 36-km causeway across the Gulf from Kuwait City to Subiya, costing up to 500 million dinars ($1.7 billion).
He said the country’s sewage systems also are sorely in need of repair and are being upgraded using modern methods such as micro tunnels and reducing lifting stations to three from 50.
Upgrades were planned for most of the seven ring roads surrounding Kuwait City, famed for traffic jams, he said.