After a month that has been dominated by the political crisis surrounding Qatar, the past week has seen a return to something like business, with MEED reporting a noticeable increase in activity over the past seven days. It seems some of the region’s most important spending bodies have been trying to launch key projects in the market before the traditional summer slowdown.

In Dubai’s always-exciting real estate sector, MEED this week reported the tender by developer Azizi Developments of a 100-storey residential tower adjacent to Sheikh Zayed Road.

This week also saw Dubai Municipality increase to $8.2bn its budget for the proposed public-private partnership (PPP) project to build a 215-kilometre network of deep sewer tunnels. The budget increase reflect the shift of the project model from a traditional EPC contract to a PPP model.

In the oil and gas market, we have seen significant announcements from both Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi this week. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser confirmed plans by the state oil company to invest $300bn over the next 10 years in oil and gas exploration and production schemes, while Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) unveiled plans to privatise some of its operations.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Transport Authority (PTA) also launched a major privatisation initiative this week when it invited companies to express interest in private sector partnerships for passenger and freight train services in the kingdom.

MEED’s most-read story of the week came from Saudi Arabia, with huge interest in MEED’s report about investor interest in the project to build a second causeway between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.