Dubai has awarded US-based Parsons International the contract for infrastructure design and supervision at the Expo 2020 site in the Jebel Ali area.

The Expo site is one of Dubai’s most high-profile projects at the moment and includes a 1.68-square-kilometre ticketed area.

The masterplan for the site is being prepared by a team of US-based HOK and the UK’s Arup, which was appointed in 2014 to develop the preliminary masterplan that the team worked on for the Expo bid. A detailed masterplan is due to be submitted this year to the Expo’s organisers, the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).

When Dubai secured the rights to host the Expo it said it would require €6.5bn ($7.4bn) of investment for development and operational costs until the end of the event.

In November 2014, DWTC appointed a team of US-based CH2M and UK-based Mace Group for the programme management of the real-estate development at the Dubai Trade Centre Jebel Ali development, which includes the site that will be used for the 2020 Expo.