Qatar's $82.5bn civil construction projects show upward trend

"While the Qatar economy is not immune to the global economic slowdown, it is expected to continue a reasonable rate of growth this year driven by the benefits from a long-term strategy to export liquefied natural gas from its vast gas field," said Emil Rademeyer, Director of Proleads Global, authors of Insight Qatar, an investigation into the country's construction industry.

The Proleads investigation is the most comprehensive and up-to-date yet on the Qatar civil construction industry and examines projects across real estate, infrastructure, leisure and entertainment. It finds the industry as at the end of March 2009 consisting of 191 major projects with a total value of $82.5bn.

The investigation quantifies the current and future state of the sector in Qatar and considers how the industry in the peninsula state is changing as it migrates from prosperity through recession and back to prosperity.

Giving a snapshot of the report's contents, Rademeyer said Proleads found that in spite of the global credit crunch, all major Qatar projects are still in operation. Further analysis of completed projects finds that more than 82% of all projects are late but that delays do not affect budgetary spend.

A previous Proleads Insight investigation, published in February 2009, found that more than half of all civil construction projects across the same sectors in the United Arab Emirates had been placed on hold.

In Qatar, most sectors experienced growth in cashflow over the greater part of 2008 but the leisure and entertainment sector saw a decline during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, say Proleads. The data indicates only one major project in the real estate sector was cancelled in Qatar during 2008.

"Expenditure in the construction industry of Qatar grew steadily in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009," Rademeyer added. "However, in the light of the current global credit crunch, a number of questions beg to be asked. For example, will the growth trend persevere despite global market uncertainties? If so, what are the projections for growth? Will things get worse and, if they do, how quickly will it change?."

The Insight report on Qatar addresses these questions by presenting in detail the current size of the industry; exploring how the industry has changed of late; and projects the future state of the industry using statistics based on quantitative and qualitative data collected and processed by Proleads.

On future projections, Rademeyer said, "Our investigation shows the Qatar industry is showing good growth as a whole. Only the leisure and entertainment sector may see a slight decline from December 2008 to December 2009."

He added, "No country in the world has proved itself immune to the credit crunch but it certainly does appear at this stage that, as far as civil construction is concerned, Qatar is probably one of the least affected."

Proleads says the accuracy of the data upon which the report is based is estimated at 90%. The report contains an exhaustive list of all major Qatari civil construction projects.

It also lists the top five developer companies in Qatar as: Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company; Barwa Real Estate Company; Energy City; Public Works Authority (Ashghal); and the New Doha International Airport Steering Committee.