The final stage work on the Banader Rotana Hotel, a 28 storey five-star project estimated to cost around $100 million, has resumed a month ago and the project is expected to be ready in about 17 months, a top official has said.

"The $47.7 million finance that we got from Kuwait Finance House-Bahrain has enabled us to revive the stalled project and we are thankful to them," Banader Hotels Company's chairman Abdulla Buhindi told the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication, yesterday.

He was talking after an extraordinary board meeting of the company held at the Diplomat Radisson Blu Hotel, Residence and Spa.

The financing comes at a very reasonable cost to the company, he said.

"We got among the best rates in the market and the repayment will start only after project completion and will have to be done over a 15-year duration," Buhindi said.

"The industry is picking up and we will have a revised budget when the hotel is ready to start operations."

Banader Hotels director Mohammed Almoayyed who was also present at the meeting said the financial crisis affected many real estate projects in the region, and some of them ceased construction due to the lack of funding.

"We all got together and decided we would ensure that did not happen to this project.

"The support from KFH-Bahrain has been timely and is well-appreciated," added Almoayyed, who is also in the running for the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry's board of directors elections.

The overall cost of the project is assessed at $100 million. It was initially scheduled to be completed by May last year and has been plagued by delays, the report stated.

Shareholders were told in April this year that due to the unrest and its adverse effect on the economy and investment, the company could not raise the necessary funds in the first half of last year as was planned.

Being built next to the Batelco Commercial Centre near Bab Al Bahrain, the 28 storey five-star hotel and serviced apartment complex will have 251 rooms which include 46 deluxe rooms and 24 private suites.-TradeArabia News Service