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$1.9B for Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi
The Cleveland Clinic project on Abu Dhabi’s Sowwah island has been granted to a joint venture between the local Arabtec Construction and Greece’s Aktor. The design and construction contract has been estimated at AED7 billion ($1.9 billion). The new project will include a 360-bed hospital and a 324-room clinic. The total area of the project will be 417,000 square meters and will include parking space for more than 3,000 cars. The clinic is scheduled to open in 2011. Local developer Aldar Properties is managing the construction on behalf of the government-controlled Mubadala Development Company and the consultant is UK’s Driver Consult.
Emaar awarded $100M Cairo project
Emaar’s Egyptian subsidiary, Emaar Misr has won a contract to develop and project manage a 2.2 million square meter social housing project on the Cairo-Suez road. With homes of 70 to 90 square meters, the city is planned to have the largest possible number of residential units in a given area. The project will also create job opportunities in line with the socio-economic growth objectives of Egypt. The new project will be called the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Residential City after the president of the UAE.
Iraq to cut budget spending in 2009
Since oil revenues constitute around 94% of Iraq’s budget receipts, Iraqi Finance Minister Bader Jabr Solagh is considering more cuts in budget spending in 2009 as oil prices are expected to fall further. The budget was prepared on the basis of oil prices at $50 per barrel with exports reaching 2 million barrels per day. Moreover, the plan will allocate $15 billion for investments and $2 billion for reconstruction of the oil industry. In addition, $8 billion will be reserved for security and another $650 million will be allocated for water distribution projects. In total, this will lead to a forecasted budget deficit of $15 billion in the coming year. On a parallel front, Iraqi finance minister pleaded with the Chinese government to write off the remaining Iraqi debts worth $8.5 billion as a goodwill gesture to support the Iraqi people and government. In a related note, General Electric Co. (GE) signed a $3 billion deal with Iraq in order to help them increase the country’s power generation capacity by some 7,000 megawatts, in an effort to reach the goal of around 13,000 megawatts.
