According to Reuters, Qatar, host of the 2022 soccer World Cup, plans to offer the first tender for its railway and metro system in the next three months. Preliminary designs had already been prepared, said Abdullah al-Subaie, managing director of the Qatar Railways Company. Subaie said the total cost of the Qatar railway project will reach US$ 35.7 billion and that more than 1.2 million tonnes of iron would be required for the project. There will be a total of 100 stations in the project. He did not give details about the size of the contracts, but said they would include a tender for digging tunnels and setting up stations for the network. Subaie said work on the system would start with the metro and its first phase will be ready by 2021, one year before the soccer World Cup. The entire project would be completed by 2026. Qatar's copious natural gas reserves have turned it into an economic powerhouse and the world's richest country per-capita, and driven its bold ambitions. The tiny Gulf Arab state has allocated 40 percent of its budget between now and 2016 to infrastructure projects. These include $11 billion on a new international airport, $5.5 billion on a deep-water seaport and $1 billion for a transport corridor in the capital, Doha. It will spend $20 billion on roads. The world's top liquefied natural gas exporter, spared by popular unrest sweeping the Arab world, plans to spend over $125 billion in the next five years on construction and energy projects. Subaie said he urged Qatari companies to build partnerships with international firms to work on the construction of the project.

As reported by Reuters a five-year project for French engineering group Alstom to build an above-ground urban metro line in Baghdad will cost $1.5 billion and be funded by the French government and banks, according to Iraqi officials. The planned line, with a capacity to carry 30,000 passengers an hour, will have 22 km of track and 14 stations linking northern Baghdad districts with the city centre. France's Alstom signed a memorandum of understanding for the deal in January. A follow-up agreement signed in Baghdad on 30 May paved the way for French financing for the project. "The company has obtained agreement from several French banks and the French government to implement this project," Shaker al-Zamili, head of the Baghdad Investment Commission, told Reuters. A final accord on the Baghdad metro project would have to be approved by the Iraqi cabinet, he added. The loan would be repaid by Iraq after the railway started operating, through a mechanism yet to be determined, Zamili added. Iraq's roads, railways, ports and power plants have been badly decayed by years of war, economic sanctions and underinvestment. Alstom is a large French multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. Alstom is active in the field of hydroelectric power generation, in conventional islands for nuclear power plants, and in environmental control systems. Alstom is also present in the urban transport market, and is behind regional train models, signaling infrastructure equipment, and a number of associated services.

In South Africa talks are underway between the Government and the Chinese State-owned China Railway Group on construction of high-speed railway line between the cities of Johannesburg and Durban, length 556km. Project cost is estimated at US $ 30 billion and reduce travel time compared to driving twice. China Railway Group is currently the second largest construction company in the world and takes place in the world 342 Fortune Global 500 companies. Also note that now the Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger takes a "guided tour" of major Asian countries producing and manufacturing high-speed trains, to select a contractor for assumed high-speed railway between Los-Angeles and San-Francisco.