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Dubai: Dubai has awarded Dh6 billion worth of tenders for work on Dubai World Central (DWC), the site where the world's biggest airport is planned, since the project's launch in 2005, according to DWC sources.
The first among its six runways will be operational in October this year.
About 40 design and construction packages awarded in the first phase include work on Dubai World Central International Airport (JXB) and key zones such as Logistics City, Residential City and Aviation City, a DWC spokesman told Gulf News.
DWC will be developed on an area of 140 square kilometres in Jebel Ali. The Dubai government has estimated its value to be about Dh120 billion.
Al Naboudah Contracting is one of the leading contractors for the project. The company is working on three major contracts worth more than Dh2.6 billion. These include work on runway, taxiways, airfields and roads.
Kuwait's Kharafi National was given a Dh1.5 contract for the Logistics City headquarters building and office park. A joint venture of Arabtec and Max Bogl is working on the cargo terminal building, passenger terminal and air traffic control tower after being awarded three packages worth Dh519 million.
Activities for which tenders have been awarded include radars, fuel farms, utilities and power substations.
The airport, being developed in phases, will eventually be able to handle more than 120 million passengers. Combined with planned increase in Dubai International Airport's passenger handling capacity from the current 30 million to 70 million before 2020, the Jebel Ali airport will make Dubai one of the leading global aviation hubs. The Dh30-billion airport will also be able to handle 12 million tonnes of cargo annually.
Completion of the first of six planned runways will enable JXB to commence operations in mid-2008, Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Aviation Corporation-Dubai World Central, said in a statement yesterday.
More than 70 per cent of JXB's first four-and-a-half kilometre CAT III runway is over with the target month for completion set for October, he said.
"The progress, achieved in just over a year, is a reflection of Dubai government's commitment to the region's burgeoning aviation infrastructure development. With $82 billion earmarked for this growth in Dubai, the emirate is leading the way in the Middle East, African and South Asian markets, part of a global aviation market which will be worth $2.6 trillion by 2025," he added.
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