Infrastructure to uplift Middle East construction activity in 2021 – RICS

Infrastructure to uplift Middle East construction activity in 2021 – RICS

Sentiment was deeply negative within the UAE and Bahrain, with the fourth quarter readings coming in at -28 and -26 respectively (-30 and -37 beforehand) but Saudi Arabia bucked the trend, posting the strongest rise in the CAI across all MEA nations covered, returning a figure of +24 compared to +5 previously.In the MEA, -34 percent of respondents (in net balance terms) said their workloads in private residential fell in the fourth quarter, with -41 percent of respondents also reporting a fall in private non-residential. While -1 percent of respondents saw a fall in infrastructure workloads, which is more or less flat, there was a rise in workloads in ICT (+11 percent) and energy (1 percent) sub-sectors while transportation, social, water and waste, and agribusiness remained in the negative territory.The infrastructure sector is expected to lead the recovery over the next 12 months in the MEA with a net balance of +29 percent of the respondents expecting workloads to increase.Expectations are modestly positive within the private residential sector (+13 percent); although private non-residential projections are marginally positive within MEA, the sector is still expected to lag the overall recovery.In terms of total workloads for 2021, respondents expect a robust rebound