The Banader Rotana Hotel in Bahrain is on target to be completed by May next year.

The hotel is being built next to the Batelco Commercial Centre near Bab Al Bahrain.

Shareholders at the Banader Hotels Company annual meeting yesterday were told that about 55 per cent of the structural concreting work had been completed by the end of last year and that slab concreting had reached the eighth floor.

He said that in spite of the fact that the project was running about 78 days behind schedule, he was confident that this was time that could be made up.

Chairman Abdulla Hassan Buhindi said that while the hotel industry was currently experiencing low occupancy problems in the wake of recent unrest he was confident that the situation would have resolved itself long before the construction was complete.

'This is obviously a difficult time for the kingdom's hotel industry but I believe that this is something which will be resolved,' he said after the meeting.

During 2010, the company awarded contracts for a number of phases of the development including for cooling systems, kitchen and laundry equipment, interior decoration and pools jacuzzi and sauna.

Buhindi said that the board continued to closely monitor the construction of the hotel and oversee the work of the three main parties involved including the main contractors, GP Zachariades, project managers, International Design Engineering and Architecture and lead consultants Mohamed Salahuddin Contracting and Engineering Bureaux.

At the start of last year, the board had agreed to call up the second instalment of BD6 million on 120 million shares of the company's issued share capital.

This succeeded in raising a total of BD5.6 million ($16 million) or 93.33 per cent and they were confident the balance of BD400,000 would be paid up this year.

'As the overall budgeted cost for the hotel construction project is BD40 million there will be a requirement for the company to seek funding of around BD28 million,' he added.

'The board, in its continued effort towards the completion of the project, will be proceeding with legal and administrative formalities and procedures necessary for the successful raising of additional funds,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service