Japanese builders are owed billions of dollars on projects that include the Dubai Metro and Palm Island, according to a top trade official and leading contractors from the country.

Japanese builders have played a pivotal role in Dubai’s construction boom, spearheading the building of the Dh28 billion (US$7.6bn) Metro and participating in Nakheel’s palm-shaped islands off the emirate’s coast.

But as the global financial crisis brought many projects to a standstill, an increasing number of foreign companies, especially builders, have reported payment problems mainly linked to Dubai developers.

“Some Japanese construction companies are facing very serious debt problems as Dubai can’t pay,” Seiichi Otsuka, Japan’s Consul General in Dubai, said in an interview. “Some companies engaged with the construction of the RTA Metro are facing some payment issues.” He said companies were owed money by Nakheel too.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), part of Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Group, and Taisei Corporation, one of Japan’s largest contractors, are among those firms affected by non-payment on contracts, which date back years in some cases.

MHI led a consortium of five contractors including four Japanese companies that was awarded a Dh12.45bn contract in May 2005 to plan and develop the Metro’s Red Line. The following year, the same Mitsubishi-led consortium won a Dh4.08bn contract to build the Green Line. Other members of the consortium were Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, Obayashi Corporation and Kajima Corporation and Yapi Merkezi of Turkey.

Ten of the 29 stations on the project’s Red Line opened in September, with the Green Line expected to be operational next year.

“MHI executed the construction of the Dubai Metro and some other contracts and we are still awaiting payment,” said Koji Okamoto, general manager, of the Middle East Office of MHI in Dubai. The company has contracts in the Middle East valued at $150bn.

RTA officials were not available to comment.