Qatar Committed to 2018 GCC Rail Deadline

At the 70th International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting, Qatar’s Transport Minister Jassem Al-Sulaiti reaffirmed his country’s commitment to meeting the deadline of 2018 for completing its section of the GCC Rail Network.

Al Sulaiti said that the meeting of GCC Transport Ministers in Bahrain in April had moved the project forward and it is likely to be met. He also said that the mega project’s final design will be completed by the end of this year. The Bahraini minister for transport will be visiting Doha later this month.

Where the UAE and Saudi have moved furthest on the project with feasibility studies and offering tenders to contractors, other countries are moving forward as well.

The GCC network will begin at the Iraq / Kuwait border, head south through Saudi Arabia to Dammam where it will split, one line crossing a new causeway to Bahrain and the other through Qatar to the UAE and Oman. Commentators have questioned whether the mega project will be completed on time given the different speeds at which countries are working on this.