Dubai: For the first time since the first quarter of 2010, the UAE has started to show impressive growth rates in terms of projects planned and underway with a six per cent year-on-year increase, up to $614 billion, according to the Mena Construction Projects Tracker.
“This is driven by the recently announced Dubai mega real estate projects,” it stated.
Dubai has added $110 billion worth of real estate projects in November alone, bringing the UAE’s early stage projects to $199 billion, according to the report. This is up by 127 per cent from $88 billion of projects in October.
In November, Dubai announced a spate of mega projects including the Mohammad Bin Rashid City, a leisure and entertainment destination that will include the world’s largest shopping mall (Mall of the World) and 100 hotel facilities.
The UAE is up year on year to $17 billion in terms of projects awarded compared to $15 billion in 2011, the report said, adding that this is down from $32 billion in 2010.
“For the UAE the focus is now on a potential revival in Dubai. While real estate development spend is rising, we believe the key bottleneck for the emirate remains financing,” the report noted.
The country’s project pipeline stands at $39 billion, up by 15 per cent from October, with construction being the main driver. The total projects in the pipeline across the Mena markets reached $308 billion, up by five per cent from October, the report said.
Saudi Arabia continues to have the largest pipeline at $73 billion worth of projects, followed by Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar, it said. Construction is the project driver for Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Although the number of cancelled or delayed projects in the UAE declined by seven per cent, it is still tops the list of Mena markets for delayed and cancelled projects that are worth $703 billion, the report stated.
There are $1.449 trillion worth of delayed and cancelled projects in the main Mena countries — a 4 per cent drop compared to October.
Iraq had the largest change with total and cancelled projects up by 14 per cent since October. There were more delayed than cancelled projects, with delayed ones increasing 45 per cent to $57 billion.
Egypt was also up but only by two per cent to $94 billion. “We would except a reversal of this trend once IMF financing has been secured,” the report noted.
New projects in the Mena region reached $10 billion in the last 30 days before the November report — with the UAE accounting for over half this total, it said.
