Beirut (APD) - A high ranking government official in Bahrain said that the estimated budget for the 45 kilometers Bahrain-Qatar Friendship Bridge has increased from $1.7 billion to $2 billion, the Riyadh-based Okaz daily reported Wednesday.
The founding committee tasked with the Bahrain-Qatar causeway project submitted its final report concerning the establishment of the bridge to the Bahrain-Qatar Joint High Commission.
The bridge is expected to be completed four years after the start of construction works.
The link is expected to consist of a number of bridges combined with roads constructed on dams and will be a natural extension of the King Fahd Causeway that connects Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, thus linking the entire region.
If completed, the causeway will be the world's largest fixed link and will strengthen the relations between the two countries after their long dispute over border issues.
A dispute dating back to the 1930s between the two emirates over the potentially oil-and-gas rich islands was finally resolved between Qatar and Bahrain by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on 2001.
The ICJ granted Bahrain sovereignty over the Hawar islands and the Qitat Jarada island, and gave the Zubarah strip, Janan island and Feshi Al-Daibal rocks to Qatar. [FC]
By Nadim Issa, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2006
