DUBAI: Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has awarded a 10.6 billion dirham ($2.89 billion) contract to expand the city's metro system, the RTA said on its Twitter account on Wednesday.

A consortium led by France's Alstom is the winning bidder, Al Arabiya television channel reported, for the contract to extend the metro so that it reaches the Expo 2020 site.

Expo 2020 is a trade exhibition that Dubai hopes will bolster visitor numbers to the emirate.

Copyright Reuters, 2016