Spain’s Arena International Group has agreed to resume work in a stadium in Iraq after a 9-year stoppage due to a financial dispute, an Iraqi official has said.

The company was awarded the 30,000-seater stadium project in the Babil province in 2013.

The project was scheduled to be completed in 2015 but the company suspended work before that date after the government refused to meet its financial demands on the grounds work was progressing slowly.

“Efforts exerted by the Youth and Sport Ministry have resulted in an agreement by the Company to restart the project instead of retendering it,” Babil’s Governor Adnan Al-Faihan told the official Alsabah daily on Thursday.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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