The Green line of the Dubai Metro will open at least three months late, according to the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA).

Dubai’s transport regulator has confirmed that due to a 7-kilometre extension to the Green line, this rail route will not open until at least June 2010, rather than March as planned.

This follows an earlier RTA announcement that only 10 of 29 stations on the Red line of the metro will open on time when the project is launched on 9 September.

The regulator has given no opening date for the remaining 19 stations on the project.

The RTA has also confirmed that the entire metro is about 80 per cent over budget.

The likely cost now is close to AED28bn ($7.6bn) compared with the AED16bn originally planned.