As Ramadan draws closer, the region’s construction market is slowing down.

With many people on holiday and contractors working shorter hours the submission dates of some of the largest projects in the Gulf have been moved back until after the religious period has ended. The majority of them are infrastructure and public building contracts.

Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) has extended the bid deadline for the main construction contract on its $1bn Louvre museum project by three months to the 30 October.

A number of tender deadlines in Kuwait have also been extended. The submission date for the KD1bn ($3.7bn) Subiya causeway project in Kuwait has been extended from 8 August to 10 October.

Kuwait University has extended the submission date to 12 September for a contract to build a faculty of arts and a faculty of education on the new $3bn Sabah al-Salem University campus.

In Qatar, tender documents are expected to be issued for the contract to build the Qatar National Museum by the end of September.

As a lot of the tenders won’t be submitted until September, after evaluation process, it will be the end of the year before awards are made for many of the large construction projects.

Contractors will be eagerly anticipating September when the bidding processes are re-ignited. The collapse of the real estate market following the recession has meant that these large public building contracts are of significant value to the region’s construction market.

The region’s contractors will hoping that the market picks up after Ramadan, in what has been a tough year so far for those involved in the building sector.