The Italian contractor Salini Impregilo said yesterday it won the US$435million contract to build the Meydan One Mall in Dubai, for which a groundbreaking ceremony was held on Wednesday evening.
The contractor said that it would be responsible not only for building the mall but also some of the substructures and superstructures for neighbouring elements, including the foundations and concrete support structures for the 1 kilometre-long indoor ski slope that will be built above it.
The Italian builder said two metro lines will pass under the mall, including an extension of the Green Line connecting it to Dubai International Airport.
The work is expected to take 23 months to complete. Salini Impregilo has worked on a number of important projects in the Middle East, including the construction of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Currently, it is part of a consortium delivering a €3.72 billion (Dh14.6bn) contract for line 3 of the Riyadh Metro, for which tunnelling work finished last month.
Last June, its joint venture with Turkey's Limak Holding landed a $1bn infrastructure contract for the new South Al Mutlaa city project in Kuwait, where 30,000 new homes are planned, and in December its subsidiary Lane Construction Corp was part of a partnership that landed a $125m contract at Al Maktoum International Airport.
Salini Impregilo said the Meydan One Mall contract takes the projects secured since the start of this year to €1.7bn. On Wednesday, it announced a 37 per cent increase in net profit last year to €59.9m as revenue edged up by 1.2 per cent to €6.1bn. It also said that Middle East projects comprise 13 per cent of its €29.4bn pipeline.
Speaking on an investors’ conference call after its results were announced, Pietro Salini, the chief executive, highlighted the opportunities in emerging markets, particularly through the growth of new megacities. “The quick pace of urbanisation is obviously creating demand for infrastructure. So much has to be done in these parts of the world that it stands to account for about 60 per cent of the total construction volume by 2025.”
Although much of the Middle East’s construction market remains subdued, the Dubai market has been buoyed by clients looking to complete projects before the start of the Expo in October 2020.
Last month, British construction and infrastructure support services company Carillion announced a Dh2.2bn contract win from the Expo organising committee, which in January said it would award Dh11bn of construction contracts this year.
mfahy@thenational.ae
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