Qatar, China eye Bahrain Bay

Bahrain Bay Development (BBD) is in talks with Qatari and Chinese investors to sell land in its $2.5 billion Bahrain Bay property project in Manama, a top executive told a local newspaper on Tuesday.

BBD officials said the firm had already sold 65 per cent of the land plots and investors were eyeing the remaining 35 per cent.

Deputy Chief Executive Abdullah Dosari told Manama-based Al Wasat newspaper that BBD was in negotiations with Qatari investors about the plots.

"We also met a delegation from China for the same purpose (and) we are also talking to a number of Bahraini investors," he was quoted as saying.

BBD will begin selling the remaining land at the end of 2011, on hopes that market conditions will be better. The project, a business and retail district, is located in the Bahraini capital's north end.

Despite pressures from the economic downturn, BBD's Chief Executive Bob Vincent said that the Bahrain Bay project is moving forward as planned.

BBD aims to sell the remaining land by the next two or three years at most, Dosari said. The company halted land sales on the project in 2008 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Vincent also said eight firms were bidding for a contract to build the $350 million Four Seasons Bahrain Hotel, located in the project. He did not name the bidders.

The Bahrain Bay development also includes a trade center as well as a project by Singapore's CapitaLand and the now-complete building for investment firm Arcapita Bank, the newspaper said.

About 95 per cent of the project's infrastructure is complete with the remainder finished by August, Dosari said. The project is 60 per cent-owned by Arcapita Bank and 40-per cent held by Bahraini investors.