Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) has invited four consultancy firms to bid by 2 December for the contract to manage, upgrade and provide technical support services for a low-cost housing project.

Firms that have been invited to bid are:

• Al-Arabi Engineering
• Gulf Consult Engineering
• KEO International
• SSH International

Kuwait has multiple housing complexes planned including the $10-15bn South Saad al-Abdullah New Town, the $3.6bn South al-Mutlaa City and the South Sabah al-Ahmed City.

PAHW has not specified which housing project will utilise the consultancy contract.

In addition to decongesting the capital Kuwait City, the new residential projects are helping correct real-estate prices in the capital, which is understood to have skyrocketed in recent years.

PAHW has been seeking to involve the private sector as it works to provide affordable housing for Kuwaiti families and reduce upfront costs.

MEED understand the authority has a backlog of over 100,000 applicants, with an average waiting time of seven to 18 years.

In December 2016, Kuwait Municipality appointed a consortium comprising Dar al-Handasah and Perkins+Will, which are both part of Lebanon’s Dar Group, to draw up Kuwait’s 2040 masterplan.

The municipality had set up a development plan, in cooperation with the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA), for identifying key areas in the country where foreign firms will be allowed to operate with no local agents, and permitted to own these areas with tax and