Riyadh Metro on track despite cuts: builder

RIYADH: A major contractor on Riyadh’s $22.5 billion urban rail and bus system said Monday the project is on track despite Saudi government cuts to infrastructure last year after oil revenues fell.

The Metro is the biggest infrastructure project in the history of the Saudi capital.

“We are progressing. The project is going on satisfactorily. It is a priority project,” for the government, Pietro Bagnati, project director for the Italian construction group Salini Impregilo, told AFP.

His firm leads the ArRiyadh New Mobility consortium, one of three foreign groups building the six-line Metro project planned to cover 179 kilometres (109 miles) of the sprawling, congested Saudi capital.

The underground and elevated rail network is to be supported by a bus system.

When asked if there had been any cuts to New Mobility’s portion of the project, Bagnati said, “Our contract is still the same”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2017.

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