Work has restarted on the Dubai Metro after the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) reached a settlement over disputed payments with the construction consortium led by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, according to a Financial Times report on 17 February.

The agreement concerns $2-3bn of claims made by the consortium which also includes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Obayashi Corporation and Kajima Corporation, all of Japan, and Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi.

In 2005, the group submitted an initial price of $4.5bn for construction work. However, since then the group has claimed additional costs which the RTA disputes. In 2009, the RTA acknowledged that the cost of building the metro had nearly doubled to $7.6bn.

In January it was widely reported that construction work had slowed on the metro, although the RTA said at the time that construction was progressing on schedule (MEED 10:1:10).

The Red line began operating on 9 September 2009 with 10 stations opening initially. The Burj Khalifa station opened on 4 January and the remaining 18 stations will open gradually during the rest of 2010. The 23-kilometre Green line is scheduled to open in the second half of 2010.

In January, MEED reported that Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) was in talks with the RTA to provide funding for the project, to try resolve the dispute with Japanese contractors building the network.