“It can take four months to get road machinery into the UAE,” Yu Tao, CSCEC’s managing director in Dubai told MEED’s Middle East Road Infrastructure conference on 30 March.

“Profit margins are being squeezed by sharp increases in steel, cement and bitumen costs in the past 12 months,” he added. “This makes it increasingly difficult to secure resources that could be used in more profitable markets.”

The CSCEC is working on the Wafi-American Hospital contract and the Barsha-Al-Quoz project for Dubai’s Road Transport Authority.

The company has about 10,000 workers in the UAE, including about 1,000 engineers.