Doha: The GCC emerged as the clear leader for contract awards made in May in the Middle East, with all six states appearing in the ranking of the value of awards made. The total value of deals signed in the month declined, however, with $4.3bn of contracts inked, compared with $9bn in April, marking a decline of 53 percent.
The largest GCC deal signed was the $520m contract awarded by Qatar’s Umm Al Houl Power to South Korea’s Samsung Engineering to double the desalination capacity of the Facility D independent water and power project, leading business intelligence platform MEED revealed yesterday.
MEED’s ‘The Gulf Projects Index’ made minor gains during the past month with the total value of projects planned or under way increasing by just 0.007 per cent to $3.88tn. Altogether, there was a net gain of $258m of projects across the six GCC countries together with Iraq and Iran. On an annual basis, the total is almost 0.5 per cent greater than the total recorded one year ago. While there was an increase for the overall index for the month, the GCC total declined 0.1 per cent to $3.132tn from $3.137tn.
The GCC total is down 0.4 per cent compared with one year earlier. These declines reflect the challenging outlook for projects in the region in the wake of lower oil prices, tight liquidity and subdued investor confidence. The best performing Gulf country over the past month was Iraq, which recorded gains of 1.4 percent. Iraq is also the best performing market over the past year with a 16 per cent increase in the value of its projects market.
The positive trajectory of Iraq’s projects market reflects the improved security situation over the past few years.
Source from: The Peninsula