However, the committee will discuss the Yemen link only after addressing various aspects of the multibillion dollar GCC railway project, in particular the formation of a GCC railway authority. This is expected to take the form of a joint company to oversee work on the 1,940-kilometer line which will link Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.
Each country would contribute a share of the capital. The committee will also be looking into engineering designs as well as the action plan and time schedules to complete the overall study and then present them to local committees in the GCC. A call for tenders is expected next year.
The project, which has been under consideration for over five years, was given the final go-ahead at the GCC summit in Kuwait in December following approval of a feasibility study at a special meeting of GCC transport ministers the previous month. The project is scheduled to be built and in operation by 2016. The route for a link to Yemen has not yet been disclosed.
