World's tallest skyscraper built by S. Korean company to open this week

DUBAI, Jan. 3 (Yonhap) -- The world's tallest skyscraper built by a multinational
venture including South Korea's Samsung C&T Corporation will open this week in
Dubai, official sources here said Sunday.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said the formal opening ceremony for the Burj
Dubai tower will be held on Monday at 8 p.m. and attended by both local and
foreign dignitaries.
It said the tower, ordered by the Middle East's largest real estate developer
Emaar Properties, took five years to build and will easily surpass the overall
height of Taipei 101, the current skyscraper title-holder.
The Taipei super tower stands 508 meters, compared to over 800 meters for the
Burj Dubai. The building's exact height has not been announced, though estimates
are as high as 824 meters.
Work on the building, which covers 495,870 square meters, began in February 2005
at a cost of US$1.2 billion, with the tower to house a hotel, apartments and
offices.
The tower, built jointly by Samsung C&T, Belgium's Besix SA and Arabtec, is
noteworthy because the builders introduced state-of-the-art techniques in the
construction process.
Local industry sources said builders used global positioning systems throughout
the building process, employed super high-grade concrete and made construction
history by raising the building's height by one story every three days.
Burj Dubai also used up 330,000 square meters of concrete, and 31,400 tons of steel.
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