30 September 2007
Doha: The construction of the 45-km Friendship Causeway linking Qatar and Bahrain will start in seven months and last four years.
The Qatar and Bahrain Causeway Foundation (QBCF) signed a memorandum of understanding with a joint venture formed by Qatari company Al Diyar and French construction group Vinci on Thursday night, announcing the beginning of work by May 2008.
QBCF's chairman, Ahmad Hassan Al Hammadi, said the $2 billion (about Dh7 billion) causeway will link the Qatari coast of Ras Ashiraj to the village of Askar on the eastern coastline of Bahrain.
"The project will strengthen ties between the two Gulf countries and enhance cooperation," Al Hammadi told local media on Thursday.
He added that the final contract for the execution of the work with the Joint Venture would be signed in the next four months.
Road to Saudi Arabia
The Friendship Causeway will become the world's longest fixed link and will be an extension of the King Fahd Causeway between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, thus linking the entire region.
The project is expected to consist of a number of bridges combined with roads constructed on dams and construction will take about four years.
Observers said the causeway will improve Qatar-Bahrain commercial relations by allowing cars and road freight to travel freely between the two countries.
The causeway will also mark a new era in the two countries' foreign relations, which have improved since 2001 following the resolution of a 60-year-old territorial dispute over several islands.
Relations started to normalise after the International Court of Justice delineated the boundary between Bahrain and Qatar's territorial waters and sovereignty over three disputed islands.
Bahrain got the Hawar Islands and Qit'at Jaradah Island. Qatar was given sovereignty over Janan Island, the low-tide elevation of Fasht Al Dibal and the Zubarah Strip.
Since the resolution of the controversy, Qatar and Bahrain have intensified relations. The two countries have established a Joint Supreme Committee, which had expressed its approval of implementation of the Causeway Project since early 2005.
By Barbara Bibbo
Gulf News 2007. All rights reserved.
