The total value of contract awards in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) projects market this year is expected to stay steady at $117 billion compared to last year, a report said.

The GCC projects market had a muted performance in the first half of 2017, but it is expected to perform better in the second half of the year as the region’s economies continue to adjust to lower oil prices, said the latest report from Meed Projects, a projects tracking and analysis service.

The contract awards totalled just $56 billion in the first six months of 2017 compared with $69 billion worth of deals over the same period in 2016, a 19 per cent fall.

With the exception of Saudi Arabia, every country in the region experienced lower contract award values year-on-year, with the most marked falls seen in Kuwait (46 per cent) and Bahrain (84 per cent), the report said.

Even Dubai, which has hitherto been the most robust and active of the GCC projects markets, experienced a slight dip between the two periods.

The prognosis for the second half of 2017 is brighter, however. Based on its tracker’s pipeline of projects under bidding in addition to contracts already awarded in July and August, Meed Projects forecasts a total of just $61 billion to be let in the second half of this year, a significant improvement on the first six months.

On a country level, the UAE, led by the Dubai real estate and transport sectors, remains the largest single market with about $38 billion worth of contract awards in H1. It is followed by Saudi Arabia at close to $36 billion and then Kuwait at $16.8 billion.

“Although market performance has been sluggish, there have been signs of a pick-up in activity,” said Ed James, director of content and analysis at Meed Projects.

“The award of more than $5 billion worth of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts on the new Duqm refinery in Oman at the beginning of August, plus a raft of new project announcements in Dubai, and the gradual re-emergence of activity in Saudi Arabia have provided a degree of impetus that points to a strengthening market.”

“There is no doubt that the past two years have been tough for the projects supply chain as government spending has slowed,” said James.