15,000 projects under construction in Saudi Arabia, UAE: report

Saudi Arabia and the UAE together accounted for 60 percent of the 25,000 projects under construction in the MENA region in 2017, valued at over AED 900 billion ($245 billion), Dubai's Arabtec Holding said in its latest investor presentation.

The UAE construction market is estimated to grow at 9.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in line with the work on projects connected to Expo 2020 and the UAE Vision 2021, it added.

The contractor estimated the UAE's construction industry project pipeline for pre-execution at AED 1.2 trillion.

While no comparative figures were given for Saudi Arabia, consultancy firm Faithful + Gould said in January that Saudi Arabia was expected to award contracts worth $35 billion in 2018, up 59 percent, from $22 billion last year.

However, it said in August that new construction contract awards were declined to $5 billion in Q2, 2018 compared to about $11 billion in Q1 2018.

Earlier this year, law firm Pinsent Masons said in its annual “GCC Construction Survey” that business sentiment is set to improve across the Kingdom’s construction sector over the next 12 months despite challenging economic conditions.