Description
The COVID-19 pandemic has in most countries caused significant disruption to the projects market and Saudi Arabia has been no exception. As the coronavirus took hold and the kingdom went to economic lockdown in the Spring, the government announced a raft of measures including a cut back in projects spending as its revenues from oil sales declined sharply.
The impact is no better highlighted than in the performance of the projects market. For 2020 as a whole, just $18.2bn worth of contracts were awarded in total, making last year the worst year in at least a decade. Indeed, only a paltry $5bn worth of deals were let in the second six months of the year as the economy drew almost to a halt.
Nonetheless, the projects market is expected to rebound fairly strongly this year as life returns to normal and the crude price exceeds $60 a barrel. The government is also talking bullishly by recommitting to its ambitious projects spending plans under its 2030 Vision. It has also doubled downed on its self-styled ‘gigaprojects’ programme which is set to transform the economic landscape in the kingdom.
Increased government spending and a growing backlog of projects should combine to see overall project spending to rise to more than $36bn in 2021 which would be on par with the totals seen in the 2017-19 period. However, the kingdom is still vulnerable to the vagaries of the oil price and investor confidence, and it remains to be seen whether it can successfully push through with its plans in the long-run.
Saudi Arabia Projects H1 2021 is the update to last year’s report. Focused on data, it is aimed at helping companies create strategies for targeting and growing the market. It uses almost exclusively data from MEED Projects, the region’s leading online projects tracking service. With 15,000 active projects tracked and more than 35,000 in total in the database, MEED Projects makes it possible to quantify current, historical and future trends in the projects market in the region.
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