Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) expects to tender the contract to build four substations at the South Al-Mutlaa City in the first half of 2018.

According to a source with knowledge of the project, the estimated budget for each of the four substations is KD25m ($83m).

The project, which will occupy a 104 square-kilometre area in Kuwait’s Jahra governorate, to the west of the capital Kuwait City, is understood to be proceeding according to plan.

Local firm KEO International Consultants is understood to be undertaking a one-year contract for the phasing and packaging strategy of the entire development, including the scheduling of tenders for the houses, mosques, supermarkets, clinics and sports centres, among others.

PAHW awarded several infrastructure packages for the city over the past few weeks. They included roads for a block that includes 4,999 plots, which was awarded to Turkish firm Polat Insaat ($165m), and another contract for a block of 4,770 plots, which was awarded to another Turkish Contractor, Cengiz Insaat ($163m).

Last year, PAHW awarded China Gezhouba Corporation a $708m contract for the second major infrastructure works package. This follows the award in 2016 of the first major infrastructure package, worth $954m, to a team comprising Italy’s Salini and Turkey’s Kolin.

The infrastructure works at the city are expected to be completed in 2019.

Once completed, the South Al-Mutlaa city will have 30,000 housing units with population projected to reach 400,000. This would comprise about 9 per cent of the state’s projected population of nearly 4.6 million by 2019, according to IMF estimates.