Kuwait is to start building a state-of-the-art, $1.2-billion container port on Bubiyan Island early next year following Cabinet approval, the emirate's public works minister said yesterday. "Work on the port will start early 2005... It will be the main port serving Kuwait, Iran and Iraq," Bader Al-Humaidi said in a presentation on the port. The government has given the project the green light as part of a major plan to develop Bubiyan - the largest of the emirate's nine islands - into a free zone, storage area, oil depot and recreational services. The port will become operational in stages, beginning in early 2008 with a 1.3-million standard container capacity ahead of final completion by 2016. Its rate of return will be around 14.5 percent. Bader Mishari Al-Humaidhi, director general of the state-owned Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) that financed the feasibility study, said the government would pay the infrastructure costs of around 305 million dinars ($1,035 million). An additional 40 million dinars for equipment will be met by the private company that will be set up to manage the port, he added. Thirty percent of the company will be owned by a foreign operator and 30 percent by Kuwaiti investors. The remaining 40 percent will be sold in an initial public offering (IPO), Humaidhi explained.
