Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has awarded Beijing-based China State Construction Engineering Corporation a AED482m ($131m) contract to build a new flyover crossing Sheikh Zayed road.

The new intersection will be built between interchange 2 at Safa Park and interchange 3 at Al-Manara and will connect to Umm al-Sheif street, Latifa bint Hamdan street and Al-Zomorrud street.

The award is the latest road contract to be let by the RTA. In early December, it awarded the local Wade Adams Contracting the AED474m contract for the second phase of the extension to Academic City road.

Due for completion by the fourth quarter of 2017, the 25 kilometre-long extension will have four lanes in each direction and will run from the intersection on the Dubai to Al-Ain highway to Yalayis Road.

Other road projects are being tendered. They include an intersection as part of the Shindagha corridor scheme as well as new roads and junctions in the Business Bay area.

For the Shindagha corridor junction, Wade Adams submitted a low bid of AED611m in early November. That contract involves the upgrade of the Sana junction in the Karama area next to Zabeel Park on the road leading from World Trade Centre to the Burjuman Centre. The works include the construction of a 300-metre-long and 22-metre-wide bridge, and a 15-metre-deep underpass.

For Business Bay, the low bidder is the local/Australian Habtoor Leighton Group with a price of AED445m. That contract involves building a new bridge across the extension of Dubai Creek that will connect to the under construction Dubai Canal project.

On 27 December the government said it plans to spend AED6.4bn on infrastructure in 2016, up from AED5.3bn in 2015, and is planning to maintain the size of its investments in infrastructure over the next five years.

The plans to spend 14 per cent of its AED46.1bn budget on infrastructure and the increase in spending indicates that recently awarded projects will move forward as planned and contracts that are being tendered will be awarded in 2016.

The largest government contract being tendered is for an extension to Dubai Metro connecting to the Dubai Expo 2020 site, which is known as Route 2020.