Qatar-based Barwa Real Estate Group has signed a leasing contract worth QR755 million ($207 million) with Mohammed Hayil Group for Trading and Contracting for its warehouse project, Mustawdaat, in Doha.

As per the agreement, Mohammed Hayil Group for Trading and Contracting will be free to operate, maintain and lease the project for a period of ten-and-a-half years, reported The Peninsula.

The Mustawdaat project is one of Qatar's key initiatives to meet the market demands of storage areas to fulfil the needs of its citizens and residents at affordable costs so as to support overall price reductions, stated the report, citing Barwa Group's CEO Salman bin Mohammed Al Mohannadi.

He was speaking after signing the contract with Mohammed Hayil Al Omar, the CEO of the tenant company, at Barwa headquarters.

The Qatari developer has been signed up by state-run Economic Zones Company (Manateq) to develop Mustawdaat as one of the four warehousing parks that has been awarded to a number of developers in 2015.

Located in Umm Shahrain, the project extends over a plot area of 500,000 sq m and provides four types of low-cost warehouses, including dry and air-conditioned warehouses and chilled warehouses as well as freezer warehouses on a total plot area of 259,446 sq m.

The project, which has a total built up area of 273,113 sq m, includes the construction of a residential compound for the employees, offices, 38 retail shops and a mosque, in addition to all the necessary infrastructure, including the construction of 13 substations, internal roads, loading and unloading areas and networks for potable water, fire, irrigation, sewage and their respective tanks.

Sponsored by Manateq, these projects offer an ideal solution for logistics activities and were awarded for the developers to run a  build-operate-transfer model, whereby the facility is designed, constructed, operated and maintained by the developer, said the report.

It will be subsequently transferred to Manateq following a 25-years concession period, it added.