MUMBAI : An eight billion USD Disneyland theme park will soon come up in Bahrain.

The project, based on the Walt Disney company’s theme parks, will be christened ‘Disney Bahrain’. The park will cover 16 million square metres and the construction work is expected to start in May 2007 and will be completed in six years, say sources. Disney currently has 11 theme parks worldwide.

It is reliably learnt that Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is behind the Bahrain Disney venture and that he has been in talks with investors like the Kuwait Finance House, the Gulf’s second largest Islamic bank. The prince indirectly owns 10 per cent of Disneyland’s Paris operator, Euro Disney and his Rotana Audio Visual company, to distribute Walt Disney products across the Middle East and North Africa.