Kuwait to spend 26 bln USD on 80 road projects

KUWAIT CITY, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait has hammered out a plan to execute up to 80 ventures aimed at facilitating traffic in coming years, Ahmad Al-Hesan, the director general of the Kuwaiti roads authority and land transports, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference, Al-Hesan put the total value of the package of ventures at eight billion Kuwaiti dinars (26 billion U.S. dollars).

He added that the authority projected budget for next year amounted to 500 million Kuwaiti dinars (1.6 billion U.S. dollars), in addition to 13 million Kuwaiti dinars (42 million U.S. dollars) earmarked for miscellaneous expenditures.

Al-Hesan put funds spent on infrastructural projects over the past years in the range of 1.6 billion Kuwaiti dinars (5.2 billion U.S. dollars).

The network for main roads and bridges will become the main keys of support to developmental projects based on Kuwait vision 2035. The roads and bridges network conducted by the state are part of the infrastructure projects to deal with the increasing population and residential expansions in the country.

In February 2010, with an aim to change the country's long-existed oil-reliant economic structure, the Kuwaiti government unveiled "Kuwait 2035," a national development strategy, hoping to build the country into a trade and financial hub. Enditem