The enabling facilities contract includes the construction of temporary accommodation for workers, temporary offices for the architect and project manager, a mosque, a laydown area, roads and site fencing, and landscaping works. The contract will take about three months to complete.

Bids were submitted on 20 October by three companies for package 2, which covers the concrete batch plant. The bidders are Lebanon's Readymix Beton, the local Readymix Abu Dhabiand the local/UK RMC/Supermix. The successful company will set up a concrete batch plant on site, which will supply about 110 cubic metres an hour of concrete for the project. The project will need a total of about 200,000 cubic metres.

Bids are due to be returned by 5 November for the third package, covering the construction of an onsite laboratory for material testing.

Tender documents for the largest package, estimated to be worth AED 250 million ($68.2 million), will be issued in mid-November. The contract will cover the superstructure works for the proposed palace building. This will be followed by the tendering of an estimated AED 200 million ($54.5 million) package for the superstructure works for the east and west hotels.

The estimated AED 1,200-1,500 million ($327 million-409 million) project comprises a total of 16 packages. The UK's WAT&G is the project architect and the US' Turner Internationalthe project manager. The centre will host the GCC summit in late 2004. The client is the Abu Dhabi government (MEED 3:8:01).