Business & Finance Club - Manama : Work on a BD10 million ($26.52 million) project towards building a World Heritage Site in Bahrain is set to begin in months, said a senior government official.

The government is already finalising plans for the project to reflect a neighbourhood where people involved in the pearl industry used to live and trade, which will see a two-kilometre stretch of old Muharraq renamed the Pearl Route, said Culture Ministry Undersecretary Dr Isa Ameen.

'The project has an estimated budget of BD10 million and will be started within two months, after being inspected by the World Heritage Committee in October,' he said.

The committee is part of the Unesco and will send experts to inspect the route.

'Committee officials will inspect the location, before we get the go-ahead to begin work in January,' said Dr Ameen. 'It would take us until December 2012 to complete it.”

'His Majesty King Hamad has already backed most of the project's budget and the rest we will cover from our current budget, until we receive the new budget next year,” he added.

Dr Ameen said the ministry wanted to include around 50 homes on the proposed route in the scheme, to preserve the area's heritage and so far we had completed plans for 20.