80% of money owed to Arabtec is from government-linked entities

The UAE鈥檚 largest contractor Arabtec is owed about 3 billion dirhams (拢542m) by the country鈥檚 developers. The firm鈥檚 chief executive Riad Kamal said 80% of the money was owed by government-linked entities. He said that Arabtec was hoping to meet government officials later this week to discuss the situation.

Kamal told Reuters he was confident Arabtec would be paid 鈥渆ventually鈥�. 鈥淲e feel quite secure the money is going to come eventually. It鈥檚 a question of if it鈥檚 going to come in good time to be able to sustain the outlook and commitments that we have with our suppliers and sub-contractors,鈥� Mr Kamal said.

But in the meantime Arabtec is aiming to build up business outside the UAE. It has begun working in Saudi Arabia and is also looking at Libya and Algeria. In Saudi the firm recently started work on its first project, a 1.5 billion riyals (拢266m) university in Riyadh. It has two further potential contracts in the kingdom.

黑洞社区 reported in March that the average contractor was owed at least 拢50m in Dubai. Both UK contractors and consultants in the region have reported problems getting paid since November 2008 when the global recession started to take hold in the UAE.

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