ABU DHABI: The MEED MENA Rail & Metro Summit due to kick off at the Beach Rotana Hotel in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday October 29 will highlight opportunities in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region’s $225 billion rail, metro, tram and bus rapid transit (BRT) capital investment programme to 2030.
Philippe Casgrain, vice president for Europe, the Middle East & Africa at Bombardier Transport will open the summit with a presentation outlining the key challenges those involved delivering hundreds of billions of dollars of railway projects face in the Middle East region.
Joining the opening keynote session at the MEED Mena Rail & Metro Summit will be representatives of major urban rail, tram and BRT programmes.
The conference will bring together almost 50 expert speakers representing government and private businesses in the GCC, the wider Middle East and the world who will address the event with over 300 delegates expected to attend it.
Figures provided by MEED Projects show that there are now 108 separate railway, metro, monorail, tram and BRT projects under bid, under design or under study in 14 MENA countries.
More than 50 of them with a combined value of almost $140 billion are in the GCC.
Saudi Arabia has the greatest potential with projects worth $50 billion due to be completed by 2025, MEED Projects show.
One of the biggest issues is pressure on the Middle East project supply chain and competing demands for steel, cement and skilled labour from other sectors of the region’s booming projects market.
About $2.2 trillion of projects are under bid, design or study, about half of this figure in the GCC.
MEED Projects figures show that Saudi Arabia alone has a pipeline of more than $350bn of projects with a value greater than $1,000 million.
The project pipeline in rail, metro, tram and BRT projects is formidable. According to MEED Projects figures.
Almost $40bn of projects are under bid in the sector at present.
But about $90 billion are under design and more than 75 percent of projects under bid, design and study are due to be finished by 2020.
The third biggest rail market is the UAE, where $27 billion worth of projects is due for completion by 2030.
Iran has more than $15 billion of major projects in the pipeline and two-thirds of this planned investment will be in the urban rail network of the Iranian capital by 2025.
MENA Rail and Metro Summit 2013 is designed to provide a critical review of these major projects which will reveal key challenges, insights and business opportunities for the rail industry focused on projects in the MENA region.(QNA)
