Concerns abound about a looming capacity crunch for key capital and infrastructure projects in the Middle East, despite optimism about increased spending in the coming 12 months, a survey from PwC yesterday showed.
PwC’s second Middle East capital project and infrastructure survey found that 75 per cent of respondents expected an increase in project spending in the coming 12 months, with the UAE considered the top target for investing in capital projects and infrastructure, followed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Such optimism is largely driven by events such as Dubai Expo 2020 and the Fifa World Cup 2022 in Qatar, together with increased spending on social infrastructure including housing, education and health care.
However, the survey, which polled the views of 130 prominent project owners, developers, contractors, advisers and financiers, suggested that market capacity is failing to keep pace with demand, which has already negatively affected project delivery in the region.
“While our survey shows a good dose of optimism, there is a capacity crunch looming which threatens the delivery of projects. It is already having an impact, as we are beginning to see more delays on projects that are under way,” according to Stephen Anderson, PwC’s leader of capital projects and infrastructure in the Middle East.
“Broadly speaking, these problems have been apparent in our region’s infrastructure sector for several years, but the increase in activity is making them more acute. They need to be urgently addressed if the region is to deliver on its ambitions.”
Ninety-five per cent of the survey’s respondents said that their projects were delayed, with 45 per cent reporting delays of more than six months.
PwC identified the ability to find the right number of people with the right skills as a key challenge for both project owners and contractors, together with difficulties securing funding. Client decision-making was also cited as a concern, with 35 per cent of contractors citing it as the greatest challenge they face delivering projects.
jeverington@thenational.ae
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Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
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July 5, 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Cadabra Inc, which would later be renamed to Amazon.com, because his lawyer misheard the name as 'cadaver'. In its earliest days, the bookstore operated out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington
July 16, 1995: Amazon formally opens as an online bookseller. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought becomes the first item sold on Amazon
1997: Amazon goes public at $18 a share, which has grown about 1,000 per cent at present. Its highest closing price was $197.85 on June 27, 2024
1998: Amazon acquires IMDb, its first major acquisition. It also starts selling CDs and DVDs
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens, allowing people to sell items on the website
2002: Amazon forms what would become Amazon Web Services, opening the Amazon.com platform to all developers. The cloud unit would follow in 2006
2003: Amazon turns in an annual profit of $75 million, the first time it ended a year in the black
2005: Amazon Prime is introduced, its first-ever subscription service that offered US customers free two-day shipping for $79 a year
2006: Amazon Unbox is unveiled, the company's video service that would later morph into Amazon Instant Video and, ultimately, Amazon Video
2007: Amazon's first hardware product, the Kindle e-reader, is introduced; the Fire TV and Fire Phone would come in 2014. Grocery service Amazon Fresh is also started
2009: Amazon introduces Amazon Basics, its in-house label for a variety of products
2010: The foundations for Amazon Studios were laid. Its first original streaming content debuted in 2013
2011: The Amazon Appstore for Google's Android is launched. It is still unavailable on Apple's iOS
2014: The Amazon Echo is launched, a speaker that acts as a personal digital assistant powered by Alexa
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, its biggest acquisition
2018: Amazon's market cap briefly crosses the $1 trillion mark, making it, at the time, only the third company to achieve that milestone
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Starring: Prabhas, Saswata Chatterjee, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Shobhana
Rating: ★★★★
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