14 September 2005

DUBAI -- The Dubai Metro Higher Committee will encourage major companies involved in the project's implementation to appoint UAE nationals in most of the jobs, Qassim Sultan, Director-General of Dubai Municipality and the head of the committee, said yesterday.

Sultan, who was speaking at a meeting of the committee, said that the move to employ more UAE nationals in the metro was in line with the directives of the emirate's leadership, and is appropriate since "in the end, it is they who have to run the metro when it starts operating in 2007."

The committee stressed the need to train UAE nationals for occupying the leading and supervisory jobs at Dubai metro.

Dubai metro will also soon launch a large-scale marketing and promotion campaign to acquaint the public with the pioneer role the service will play as a mass transit mode.

The metro will also unveil its special logo that was recently approved by Shaikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Industry and Chairman of Dubai Municipality. It was decided in the meeting that a special ceremony would be held to unveil the Dubai metro logo.

The committee also discussed proposals regarding the construction of a permanent headquarters for the Metro and a control centre. In all, there will be two offices for the metro. It is expected that the foundation stone of Dubai Metro would be laid in a key area of Dubai.

At the meeting, committee members were briefed by Nasser Ahmed Saeed, Assistant Director-General of Dubai Municipality for Metro and Public Transport and General Co-ordinator for Dubai metro, about the project's progress of works over the past two months.

Saeed said that a mechanism had been agreed upon with Durl (Dubai Urban Rapid Link), the consortium undertaking the project, to dig tunnels in various parts of the city as well as with suppliers of electronic control systems for the metro.

The committee also discussed the need to appoint a separate firm for running and maintaining the Metro after the project's completion. The provisions for this would be included in the project's final design before its construction.

The committee plans to run Dubai metro as a major investment project in order to provide the public with the most appropriate mass transit and public transport facilities.

Members of the committee who attended the meeting included Mattar Al Tayer, Deputy Director-General of Dubai Municipality, Hussein Nasser Lootah, Saeed Al Sharid, Major-General (retd) Sharafuddin Al Sayyid Hussein, and Abdullah Al Hashmi.

By a staff reporter

© Khaleej Times 2005