Middle East rail network set for 2017

Date: 1/10/2009

The GCC rail network in the Middle East should be completed by 2017, it has been confirmed.

The network, which will connect a number of countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE via a single line, will cost around $25 billion (£15.6 billion) to complete.

According to the Kuna news agency, Mohammad Obaid Al-Mazroui, assistant secretary general for economic affairs at the General Secretariat of the GGC, said that trains should begin on the system by 2017.

Work has already begun on the network, with David Butter, regional director at the Economist Intelligence Unit suggesting that the most strategically important part was the Saudi Landbridge.

Mr Butter said: "The Landbridge has been held up by financial constraints and it now looks like being a 100 per cent government project, whereas it was originally conceived as a private sector development."

When completed, the Landbridge will have the capability of moving items from the Red Sea to the Gulf coast in less than 48 hours.