Middle East Development

A new study by Ventures Middle East, the strategic business advisory service covering the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and the wider Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, shows that there will be massive investment across the region over the coming years. Saudi Arabia has around 15 new projects worth US$ 8.8 billion starting this year alone.

And, as the report points out, the population in the Middle East is expected to grow by more than +30% by 2025, when it will reach 500 million. That level of forecasted growth is forcing regional governments to develop every aspect of infrastructure including energy generation, transportation, agriculture, water resources and more.

Speaking at the Intermat Middle East exhibition and conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Robert Jennings, general manager of Kanoo Machinery agreed that governments across the Middle East were taking considerable strides to develop each respective country, and that Saudi Arabia would be the country that provided the most opportunities for organisations involved in the construction sector.

“The projects I see as most significant are all based in Saudi Arabia,” said Mr Jennings. “They are the Riyadh Metro, the Jeddah to Medina High Speed Rail, the King Abdulla Financial District in Riyadh, Jizan and KAEC Ports, and also the new housing projects.”

Among other investments, it has been reported that the GCC’s oil and gas industry is planning to invest more than US$ 650 billion in its production capacities. Saudi Arabia has increased investments this year in the agriculture sector to US$ 16 billion in an effort to boost the kingdom’s agribusiness.

High demand

Mr Jennings said there was high demand for concrete in Saudi Arabia due to the considerable investments made to develop the Kingdom, which in turn required more machinery. To that end Mr Jennings reported that Kanoo Machinery would soon be introducing truck-mounted mixers and pumps designed specifically for concrete batching plants in response to this increased demand.

He added, “To support customers, a machine to machine (M2M) contact centre with full, real time remote monitoring and GPS services is in operation, as the demand to keep on site equipment running at very high levels of availability will only increase as the construction boom unfolds. The regional M2M RMS will greatly enhance machine reliability and availability thus maximising uptime.”

Commenting on market trends, he said, “On the positive, the low Euro price compared to the Japanese Yen is helping us to maintain competitive pricing against Japanese manufacturers.

However, on the negative side we are starting to experience delivery delays and longer lead times from some of the Western manufacturers. This seems to be due to supply chain issues. The general trend tends to suggest that many downstream suppliers have not yet geared up to support a significant growth cycle coming from outside Europe and USA.”

Kanoo Machinery, which supplies equipment for construction, agriculture, oil and gas and mining sectors across the region, is exhibiting at Intermat Middle East. The show takes place between October 8 and 10 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).