Kuwait maintained its fifth ranking and penultimate on the MEED magazine list of projects in the Gulf countries between March 14 and March 17, and maintained the value of its projects amounting to $171 billion that it recorded during the past month, while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked first with projects worth 1.5 trillion dollars, then came the UAE in second place with projects worth $552 billion.
Oman and Qatar came in the third and fourth places with projects valued at $191 billion and $182 billion, respectively, then Kuwait in the fifth place, and finally Bahrain in the sixth and last place with projects worth $73 billion, reports Al-Anba daily.
The magazine said that most of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries recorded a growth of less than 1%, bringing the value of the index to $2.67 trillion, while the broader Gulf projects index, which includes Iraq and Iran, rose by 1.2%, or the equivalent of $40.1 billion, in the aforementioned period while the value of the index stabilized at $3.25 trillion, up from $3.21 trillion that was recorded in the previous month, and this represents about a third of the change in the value witnessed by the index.
The Iraqi projects market recorded the largest increase, by 8.2%, to reach $307 billion. This has helped maintain its rank as the third largest market for projects in the Gulf region after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, drawing support from new projects such as the Ministry of Oil refinery project and the planned new airport in Baghdad, which contributed to the rise in the index while some planned infrastructure projects are still struggling to get off the ground after more than 10 to 20 years.
Qatar was the second best performer, as its index value increased by 3.1% to reach $181.6 billion in the period ending April 14.
The value of the projects market shrank in the rest of the Gulf countries, as the Bahrain projects index recorded a decline of 0.6%, and the Iranian market fell sharply by 2.6% due to the completion of large projects. On an annual basis, the Gulf projects index decreased by 1.29%, or $42.6 billion.