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“The Middle East isn’t dead,” Andrew McNaughton, chief operating
officer of Balfour Beatty, said in an interview in Building, a UK trade
magazine for the construction sector.
“We’re still winning work
in Dubai and the wider region looks good in the medium term,”
McNaughton said in a feature which looked at the 2010 prospects for the
UK’s largest construction firms.
Balfour
Beatty is one of the biggest contractors in the UK and has worked on
projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5, the British Museum and the
Arsenal Emirates Stadium. It is currently ranked the 19th biggest
contractor in the world.
In 2004, in partnership with Al Ghandi
and Dubai Transport Company (Dutco), it was awarded a $650m contract by
Emaar Properties to build the Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping
mall.
“Dubai clearly has issues, but in terms of energy-backed
states, Qatar and Oman still need to invest in infrastructure, and
Saudi Arabia has huge potential, although it’s probably a few years
away from being a big market for contractors,” Andy Brown, an analyst
with stockbroker Panmure Gordon, also said in the same article.
On
Sunday, Chesterton, the international property agency, predicted that
the UAE will make a "strong comeback", saying improving economic
indicators has increased investor confidence but that more needed to be
done to make mortgages more accessible. Robin Teh, director, valuations
and research, said the arrival of several investment funds targeting
distressed sales, especially in Dubai, was a sign that the country's
real estate market was bottoming out.
However, in November, research firm Proleads said some 1,845 projects worth a combined $657bn were still active in the UAE.
Source: Arabian Business
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