Dubai: Contracts worth $15 billion were awarded in the first six months of the year for projects valued at more than $30 million in the UAE’s civil construction sectors, according to half year data by MEED Projects.
More than 50 contracts, worth a total of over $5.4 billion, were for newly announced or recovered residential projects, and $3.8 billion was for mixed-use projects.
“A clear resurgence of interest in residential projects is behind the best half year for contract awards in the buildings and transport sectors since 2008,” said Julian Herbert, Director of MEED Projects, in a statement.
According to Herbert, civil construction projects represented 75 per cent of all awards in the UAE in the first half of the year. The UAE is the Gulf’s biggest market across all sectors, with over $20 billion of awards.
In Dubai, 44 major residential projects sector contracts totalling $4.8 billion were awarded in the first six months of the year. Considering smaller contracts worth less than $30 million, the emirate’s 78 awards in total make up three quarters of all residential building projects awarded in the UAE in the first half of the year.
Abu Dhabi, with six projects worth a total of $500 million, had the second highest level of residential sector awards measured by value.
The top six contractors measured by value of contracts awarded in the six-month period all netted over $500 million worth of contracts. Arabian Construction Company and Arabtec topped the list with over $1 billion each.
Over $15 billion worth of buildings’ projects have been recovered, with nearly 80 per cent of these in the mixed-use and residential sub-sectors, while around $9 billion worth of civil sector projects have changed from “on hold” to an active status in the six-month period.
