The political unrest in Bahrain has resulted in the value of the kingdom’s projects market falling by 10 per cent in the seven days up to 16 March.

In a week that saw Saudi troops crossing the border into Bahrain, the country’s projects market came to a standstill. No new schemes were announced and $7.8bn of projects were put on hold, including the $6.6bn Water Garden City, $1bn Al-Nurana and the Downtown Al-Areen real-estate projects.

The increasing unrest in the small island state has contributed to the Gulf projects market dipping by 0.8 per cent to $2.5 trillion for the week. The GCC market, which accounts for about 76 per cent of the Gulf’s projects index, recorded a 1 per cent drop.

Despite the failure of planned protests in Saudi Arabia to materialise on 11 March, the Gulf’s biggest projects market recorded a 1.6 per cent drop for the week. The main reason for this was $8.1bn of projects at the Prince Abdulaziz bin Mosaed Economic City development being put on hold.

Oman, which has had several protests over the past few weeks, recorded a 0.1 per cent fall in its projects market as no new projects were announced and a $100m hotel in Muscat was completed.

And although the UAE has avoided any political disruption, its projects market recorded a drop of 0.2 per cent as four projects worth a total $1.3bn were put on hold, and three others worth $874m combined were completed.

The project markets in Qatar and Kuwait remained flat.

Outside the GCC, Iran, a strong performer the week before, remained flat, while Iraq’s projects market declined by 0.4 per cent. This was mainly due to the completion of four projects totalling $1.5bn. Iraq remains the region’s fastest-growing market, recording a 58 per cent year-on-year increase.