The total value of major projects planned or under way in the Gulf on 24 November was $2.95 trillion, a fall of 0.24 per cent on the previous week, according to the latest Gulf Projects Index.

The GCC market, which accounts for about 78 per cent of the Gulf projects market, saw a 0.3 per cent decrease of projects planned or under way to $2.28 trillion. According to the tracker, the bulk of the decrease in the GCC was due to some high-value projects either being completed or put on hold.

Bahrain and Qatar witnessed the biggest fall, with decreases in the total value of projects planned and underway of 0.9 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively. In Qatar, the decrease can mainly be attributed to a $800m mixed-use project being put on hold.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two of the region’s largest projects markets, also saw a fall in the total value of projects planned or underway. The main reason for the decrease in both countries is that a number of high-value projects were completed.

In Saudi Arabia, the $1.8bn Mecca mono-rail project was completed, and projects totalling $2.1bn were completed in the UAE in the past week. The completed projects total in the UAE was offset slightly by the announcement of seven new projects worth a combined total of $460m.

Kuwait and Oman were the only two project markets in the region to achieve positive growth in this week’s index. The announcement of three new projects in Kuwait worth a total of $1.7bn, and two projects in Oman worth $200m resulted in their project markets growing by 0.6 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.

The overall projects index is still positive compared with the previous year, with the Gulf achieving a 10.5 per cent year-on-year increase.