RELATED ARTICLES: Sepp Blatter admits that Qatar World Cup ‘may have been a mistake’ | Qatar remains most expensive Middle Eastern country to build in | Qatar to invest $200bn into construction by 2022 Qatar plans to spend $100bn on roads and railways as part of its infrastructural developments in view of the FIFA World Cup 2022, a new report from the Kuwait Financial Centre has found. Currently without a railway network, Qatar’s high congestion and traffic accidents have prompted the country to build railways to alleviate structural hindrances to the event. As per the report by Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz), the Qatar Railway Development Company was formed with almost $41 billion worth rail projects in execution or planning phase for this purpose, with the Qatar Integrated Rail Project, comprising Doha Metro, passenger and freight rails accounting for $37 billion of it. Other big projects include the West Bay people-mover and Lusail light rail transit. Markaz added the quality of roads is ‘significantly’ better than other emerging markets, adding there is ‘concern over the current capacity’, with as many as 30 highway projects valued at around $27 billion yet to be awarded. $4.9 billion worth road projects were awarded and about $160bn worth railway projects were either in construction or planning phase in the GCC in 2012.
World Cup 2022 to encourage infrastructural spending worth $100bn
