Salalah, located close to the border with Yemen, is the sultanate's main deepwater container port. The proposed upgrade will increase handling capacity at the port to 2.7 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from just over 2 million TEUs. The selected consultant will also integrate the new port infrastructure with an industrial free zone that is to be located next to the main port.

Salalah Port Services Company (SPS) expects to handle about 1.8 million TEUs this year and 2 million TEUs in 2004. Salalah has picked up business from traffic re-routing from Aden.

The bid deadline has been extended by one month to 14 October for the contract to build a dual-carriageway linking the Durrat al-Bahrain resort development to the Hawar highway. The client is the Ministry of Works.

Prospective bidders are understood to include Ahmed Mansour A'Ali (AMA) and AA Nass, both local, Belgium's Six Constuct,Cyprus-basedGP Zachariades , Abu Dhabi-basedAl-Jaber Establishment,Dubai-based Wade Adams Contracting and Saudi Arabia's Nasser Hassan.

The contract, valued at about BD 20 million ($52.6 million), entails the construction of a 25-kilometre stretch of dual-carriageway, five grade-separated interchanges and associated three-span flyovers. The contract duration is 24 months. A team of the local Ismael Khonji Associates and the UK's High Point Rendel is the consultant (MEED 30:8:02).

The Durrat al-Bahrain resort is scheduled for completion in 2008 and will include a water park, a golf course, a marina, a shopping mall, an international exhibition centre, two hotels and residential units. The water park is under construction while start-up on the remainder of the infrastructure awaits the completion of reclamation work, which is being carried out by a team of Saudi Archirodon with Royal Boskalis Westminsterof the Netherlands.