Italy’s Itinera, a division of ASTM Group, has won the contract to upgrade a section of the Abdaly Highway, which will link Kuwait City with the under-construction South Al-Mutlaa City.

The contract is valued at €274m ($306m).

The highway segment extends 25km and has three lanes in each direction. The work entails increasing the number of lanes to five in each direction as well as the inclusion of emergency lanes.

Itinera, who won the contract with a local partner, said the construction will commence in August and is expected to be completed in 2020.

The contract for another package on Abdaly Highway is waiting to be awarded. Local Copri Construction Enterprises offered a low bid of $203m for the section of the highway that is planned to link with the Subiya Causeway.

South Al-Mutlaa City will be located in Kuwait’s Jahra governorate, to the west of the capital Kuwait City.

Once completed in 2019, the development will have 30,000 housing units, with its 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, based on the Washington-based IMF’s population forecast data.