After years of dithering, Kuwait has finally started work on a new super highway connecting the port of Shuwaikh with the north of country.
The ambitious scheme will cost £1.7 billion for the 22 mile long road to be built by South Korea’s Hyundai.
Work will begin later this year and take five years to complete.
The highway is just one of several major infrastructure schemes that are about to start and which may help propel Kuwait up the business success league table.
The causeway will connect the busy port, which is in the more populated south of the country, to a point in the north close to the border with Iraq.
Hampered economy
The road is destined to become one of the longest causeways in the world.
Abdulaziz Alkulaib, undersecretary at the Ministry of Public Works, said: “This is a very strategic project and one we have been talking about this since the 1970s.
“This is in the master plan which means it must be implemented.”
A lack of infrastructure and poor foreign investment has hampered the Kuwaiti economy in recent years despite the nation’s massive oil wealth.
The main reason for the lack of progress is years of political wrangling and bureaucratic inertia resulting in Kuwait having one of the region’s most undeveloped economies.
Among the issues raised by critics is the country’s lack of experience and expertise in drawing up and then running complex projects. In addition, the government also has a reputation for inefficiency.
However, in recent months the Kuwaiti government signed contracts to start some multibillion pound projects.
Milestone development
Among them is a project to build a gas-fired power and seawater treatment plant.
This project is considered a milestone for development in Kuwait as one of the first tie-ups between the public and private sectors, which will then see a private firm running the completed plant.
Once finished, the plant will provide 12% of Kuwait’s power and around 25% of the country’s desalination capacity.
Both of these make up part of a scheme which will see £70 billion being pumped into the economy – plus more cash to follow for a new oil refinery, hospitals and a new airport terminal.
Kuwait has also been rocked by big demonstrations demanding political reforms and though these did not form part of the Arab Spring campaigns for regime change, they did become a distraction for the government which help further delay infrastructure progress.
