Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) has invited firms to bid for the construction and maintenance of roads and infrastructure at the planned $2.3bn South Al-Mutlaa development project.

The state’s Central Tenders Committee expects to receive offers by 7 February.

Firms that were prequalified to bid for the contract include:

• China Railway International Group
• China State Construction Engineering Corporation
• Salini Impregilo (Italy)/Kolin (Turkey)
• China Railway 18^th Bureau Group
• China Tiesiju Civil Engineering
• China Camc Engineering Company
• Sinohydro Corporation

The South Al-Mutlaa city will occupy a 104 square-kilometre area in Kuwait’s Jahra governorate, to the west of the capital Kuwait City.

Once completed in 2019, the 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.