Global Arab Network | Building bridges – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia enhancing trade and logistics

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Building bridges – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia enhancing trade and logistics

Monday, 16 August 2010 13:18

Bahrain’s economy, and its role as a major trade and logistics centre in the Gulf region, is to be given a significant boost, with its sole existing link to the mainland set to be upgraded and extended under plans unveiled in early August.

According to plans announced on August 7, the King Fahd Causeway connecting Bahrain with Saudi Arabia is to undergo a massive remodelling that will greatly improve its cargo and passenger capacity as well as reduce travelling time.

According to Saleh Al Khileiwi, the Saudi Customs manager and King Fahd Causeway director-general, tenders will be called shortly for the design and construction work, which he said would see a 167% increase in the capacity of the link, allowing up to 100m travellers to pass between the two countries annually. Currently, some 50,000 vehicles a day make the 25-km crossing daily, with total passenger numbers estimated at around 18m a year.

Among the details of the project are the construction of two artificial islands, each 400,000 sq metres in area, located at either end of the causeway, and parking yards for 400 heavy vehicles at each end.

The plan also calls for additional traffic lanes on the 25-year-old causeway itself, and an increase in the number of approach lanes on both the Bahraini and Saudi ends of the structure.

While the initial work is scheduled to be completed by 2015, Al Khileiwi said the process of expanding the carrying capacity of the bridge would continue for 25 years beyond that date.

“The project includes the construction of more government buildings, expansion of traffic lanes, setting up man-made islands and other facilities…We have chalked out long-term development plans stretching until 2040,” he told a press conference.

No cost estimate has been given for the short-term upgrade or the long-term development, nor details as to how the costs will be divided up between the two sides. What is clear is that the project will both benefit the Bahraini economy and link it even more closely to that of Saudi Arabia.

The announcement of the expansion came as uncertainty was increasing over plans to construct a new link from Bahrain to Qatar, with the start date for work on that causeway being pushed back once again.

First mooted in 2001, the Bahrain-Qatar Causeway is intended to cut travel time between Bahrain and rest of the Arabian Peninsula by offering a direct route through Qatar, rather than the longer trip via Saudi Arabia, which can take up to five hours.

Proponents of the planned 40-km project, with an estimated price tag of some $4bn, also see the link as being a major boon to the Bahraini economy, providing ready access for the Kingdom’s ports to markets on the mainland and allowing Bahrain to build on its reputation as a centre for transport and logistics. This reputation should get a fillip from the announcement in 2008 that a rail line would be added to the initial proposal for a multi-lane roadway.

However, recent developments have raised questions over when work will begin on the project. In mid-June, local media reported that due to a variety of reasons there would be further delays to the causeway, which was originally due to be completed in 2015.

According to Jaber Ali Al Mohannadi, the general manager of the Qatar Bahrain Causeway Foundation, the joint body tasked with overseeing the project, the delay in starting work has been put down to the need to renegotiate cost and specifications of the design.

“It is taking some more time,” he said in an interview with the Dow Jones news agency on June 6. “We are negotiating the price and there are some technical and financial issues.”

The completion of the Bahrain-Qatar span, and in particular its rail link to the mainland, which would enable the rapid transfer of heavy cargo consignments from local ports to neighbouring markets, is important to the realisation of the country’s plans to become a leading trans-shipment centre for the region.

With the overhaul of one causeway in the works and the potential for the construction of a second, the island nation’s growing role as a regional transport hub looks set to receive a welcome boost.

Global Arab Network

This article is published in partnership with Oxford Business Group

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Last Updated on Monday, 16 August 2010 13:43

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