RIYADH, Feb 7: A Saudi-French-Chinese consortium has bagged the $1.8 billion civil works contract for the Makkah-Medina high speed railway, a project official said on Saturday.

The Al-Rajhi construction group together with France’s Alstom and China Railway Engineering won the 6.8 billion riyal ($1.8bn) contract, an official of the Saudi Railways Organisation told AFP, declining to be named.

The civil works contract is the first stage of $6 billion plan to build a 444 kilometre (275 mile) high-speed railroad linking the two Islamic holy cities of Makkah and Medina through the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.—AFP