Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing and Welfare (PAHW) has awarded two contracts worth a total of KD53.8m ($194.5m) for housing and infrastructure contracts on large housing developments.

The local Canar Trading & Contracting Company was awarded a KD34.6m contract to build 310 housing units and public buildings for the northwest part of the Sulaibikhat development, located in the Al-Assimah area of Kuwait city.

When completed, the North West Sulaibikhat project will contain 1,736 residential units and various public buildings.

The second contract, worth KD19.2m, was awarded to the local Systems Kuwait General Trading & Contracting Company to build roads and other related infrastructure at its Sabah al-Ahmad housing scheme. The Sabah al-Ahmad development is located 50 kilometres south of Kuwait City. When completed, Sabah al-Ahmad will comprise 9,000 housing units for Kuwaitis.

In August, Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) approved the award of a KD34.3m contract to the local Alamiah Building Company for the contract to build public buildings of suburb C of the Sabah al-Ahmad scheme (MEED 21:8:11).

The development will also include commercial, health, sports, educational and other private residential areas. The local Al-Dowailah Engineering is the design consultant.

In addition to the Sulaibikhat and Sabah al-Ahmad projects, the PAHW is also planning to build 10,000 low-cost houses in the Jahra area of Kuwait. The authority is planning to use the build, operate, transfer (BOT) procurement model to build the new homes on an area of 8.4 square kilometres west of Jahra City. The total cost of the project is estimated to be KD369m ($1.4bn).

The PAHW projects are part of Kuwait’s efforts to provide housing for the country’s rapidly growing population, which is expected to increase by 63 per cent over the next 20 years, rising to 5.4 million people in 2030, from its current 3.4 million population.