Muscat Daily reported that Spanish companies looking for work on Oman's section of the GCC railway have already formed alliances with businesses in the sultanate as they vie for upcoming tenders.

As a delegation from Spain arrives in the sultanate for the third leg of a GCC visit, 9 companies in the grouping have already begun partnering local companies as they search for new markets. The visit is being organized by the Spanish Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Equipment and Services for the Railway Industry.

Ms Maria Padilla trade officer at the Spanish Economic and Trade Office in the sultanate said that companies have already formed consortiums with counterparts in Oman as they start to work through the pre qualification processes for early tenders.

She said that they are doing it already. There is a lot of pre-qualification work that has to be done. There are already a lot of consortiums between Spanish and Omani companies and hopefully they will be selected. Although the decisions and tenders for a lot of the work are unlikely to be issued for a number of years Spanish companies are still visiting in order to make local contacts and assess the Omani market.

She added that some of the companies coming to work on the railway project are not engineering firms. They could be looking for work on the electric lines for the railway, the actual trains themselves or the security systems. It is important for them to get to know the market and for them to talk to the local firms.

Ms Padilla said that Spanish companies will be looking to use their experience gained on projects in their home country in the sultanate. In Spain railways is a key sector and the country has got a lot of experience in railway systems and high-speed trains.

(Sourced from Muscat Daily)