Iraq has awarded a contract to a foreign company for the preparation of designs for a 90-km ring road around its capital Baghdad, an official was quoted on Monday as saying.

The project involves the construction of a 100-metre-wide motorway around Baghdad city to ease congestion besides car parks, service stations, causeways and pedestrian bridges, said Hussein Kadhim, director of the Roads and Bridges Department at the Iraqi Construction and Housing Ministry.

Kadhim told the official daily Alsabah that designs for the “Ring Road” would be completed before the end of this year and the project would be launched soon afterwards.

“This is a strategic project which is part of a major plan to ease traffic pressure on the capital…it involves several other roads and bridges,” Kadhim said.

“We are now working with an international consultant for the preparation of the project designs, which we expect to be completed before the end of the year,” he added without mentioning project costs or the identity of that firm.

Read more: Iraq to build 98-km ring road around Baghdad

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)