Kuwait’s Communications Ministry has received prequalification documents from consultants for the project management role on the upcoming national railway scheme.

The ministry intends to prequalify at least 12 companies that will then be able to tender for the role.

The 500-kilometre national railway network is planned to be built in two phases. Completion is expected by 2018.

The network will connect to the GCC rail network at the border with Saudi Arabia.

Project management firms are also preparing to submit prequalification documents for the planned 200km metro network that will serve Kuwait City with 90 stations, nine of which will be underground.

In April this year, international consultants were invited to express interest in a design and supervision role for the planned Kuwait Metro project.

The Communications Ministry has taken over as client of the metro project, which was previously planned to be developed as a public-private partnership (PPP) project under the supervision of the Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB).  The team of the UK’s EY (formerly Ernst & Young), Ashurst and Atkins was advising the PTB on the development of the project, but their role has now ended.