"We will float the first tenders by the first quarter
of 2012 and will award the project later in the year, in the fourth quarter. We
need more time to review and evaluate it," Qatar Railways Company Group
Director Ghanim Al-Ibrahim told reporters on the sidelines of an event in
Qatari capital Doha.
The company, which had originally planned to issue the
first tender by the end of this year, has received bids from around 60
consortia containing a minimum of two contractors per consortium, Al-Ibrahim
said.
The Gulf state plans to spend a total of 150 billion
Qatari riyals ($41.2 billion) on the metro project, which will link stadia for
the 2022 World Cup, he said.
During the peak of construction Qatar's metro project
will employ more than 20,000 workers, he said.
Criteria for awarding the project include "how big
the company is, their experience, their resources, their workload and who is
their local partner," he said.
The tiny Gulf Arab state, which last December won the
rights to host the 2022 soccer tournament, has allocated 40 percent of its
budget between now and 2016 to infrastructure projects.
It will spend $11 billion on a new international airport,
$5.5 billion on a deep-water seaport and $1 billion for a transport corridor in
the capital, Doha. It will spend $20 billion on roads.
