The $5.3bn of contracts awarded in Saudi Arabia failed to lift the value of deals let in the region in May, with other GCC states recording declines in award activity. A total of $9.5bn of agreements were signed in May compared with $10.4bn in April, although the value is not as low as that recorded in February ($3.6bn).

The kingdom awarded its highest value of deals this year, although it only let eight contracts, the biggest a $2.9bn deal awarded to a joint venture of Turkey’s IC Ictas and the local Al-Rashid Trading & Contracting for the redevelopment of four existing terminals at King Khaled International airport in Riyadh. This contract was also the biggest awarded across the region in May.

The UAE let the second-biggest value of deals, at $2bn, a decrease on the $4.2bn it awarded in April. The largest award was a $460m contract let to the local Trojan General Contracting to build the first three precincts of the Yas Acres development in Abu Dhabi.

Kuwait awarded $979m of deals in May, although according to MEED’s projects database MEED Projects, the country did not sign a single deal in April. However, the May value is a huge decline from the $3.2bn of contracts Kuwait awarded in March.

Qatar let only $551m of deals, continuing a decline that started in March, when the country let $2.7bn of contracts. With about $261bn-worth of schemes planned or under way in the country, Qatar is the GCC’s third-biggest projects market after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to MEED Projects. But the consequences of the crisis now under way between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt are already giving cause for concern.

If the Qatar crisis is allowed to drag on for an extended period, it is likely to have a significant negative impact on both the Qatari and GCC economy. And few markets will be worse hit than Qatar’s projects sector, with the scale of the disruption increasing the longer the blockade continues.