A potential merger agreement between Abu Dhabi developers Aldar Properties and Sorouh Real Estate is expected to be announced "within a month," a senior Sorouh executive said on Sunday.

Indebted Aldar and Sorouh said in March they were in talks for a state-backed merger, creating a company with $15 billion in assets.

"We are moving (forward) in the process," Sorouh's managing director Abu Bakr Seddiqi al-Khoury told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference.

When asked the time schedule for a potential merger agreement, he said, "within a month."

Aldar has relied heavily on the government over the past two years for funding. Abu Dhabi has spent more than $10 billion on the company, equivalent to the amount it deployed to rescue Dubai from a bond default in 2009. – Reuters