HMRT wins Dh4.9bn airport deal

HMRT, the joint venture of Al Habtoor Engineering, Murray & Roberts and the Takenaka, has won a Dh4.9 billion (US$1.33bn) contract for the construction of Concourse 3 at Dubai International Airport. The concourse will include 20 aircraft stands, 18 of which will be for the giant Airbus A380 aircraft. It will also include two hotels, first-class and business-class lounges and duty-free shops in a total area of 528,000 square metres. Work will begin immediately, with completion expected in April 2011. The joint venture group also worked on Terminal 3, which opened in October this year. The client for the development is the Dubai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA). "DCA's awarding of this contract is a clear endorsement of the quality of our work and reflects their faith in our ability to deliver a quality project on time and within budget," said a HMRT official. Al Habtoor Engineering, a Dubai company, and Murray & Roberts, of South Africa, each have a 40 per cent stake in the joint venture, while Japan's Takenaka has 20 per cent. The contract win comes after Al Habtoor Leighton Group, a joint venture between Australia's Leighton International and Al Habtoor Engineering, stopped work last week on the Dh2.9bn deal to build the Trump International Hotel and Tower, also in partnership with Murray & Roberts, following Nakheel's decision to suspend the project. Al Habtoor Leighton Group said that staff previously working on Trump Tower would be transferred to the airport job and to Dubai Pearl, which the company recently started building in a deal worth Dh8.85bn - the largest single construction contract awarded in the Gulf. But with the availability of new property projects slowing, contractors are expected to seek infrastructure jobs, where investment is expected to continue. Competition is getting tougher for airport construction work. "I believe infrastructure projects will still continue - you have got to get the roads in place before considering hotels and houses," said Andy Karacinski, the group commercial director at Al Naboodah Construction Group, which built the first runway at Al Maktoum International Airport within Dubai World Central. "The tendering process [for airport jobs] has always been competitive, but I do believe we will see more companies who may have been concentrating on other areas looking towards this type of work," Mr Karacinski said. "Several major contractors here have all made a contribution towards airport expansion in the past, so it wouldn't be unusual for them to go for airport work." agiuffrida@thenational.ae