Why should firms tackle Saudi Arabia now?

More interviews: Geoff Sanderson | Sultan A Y Faden | Imran Afzal | Augusto Cagnardi

Dr Abdulrahman Alangari, CEO of infrastructure investment company Awnas, speaking at the Construction Week Saudi Arabia Conference 2009.

Saudi Arabia is the strongest financial centre in the region and has a very positive future. Developments are steady with slight increases year by year, you don’t find big jumps in any sector relatively speaking, which provides stability.

The main concern in the industry I am in is the financing from banks. It’s making a lot of problems for contractors and developers to go ahead with their plans because the banks have limited their commitments. This is my biggest concern, even government projects have been affected and there is no sign from the banks when this might ease. They have liquidity and they did well last year.

First quarter forecasts were higher than last year and the reason for that is because the government has reduced interest rates and meanwhile the banks have increased interest rates on business people, the margin has increased. Until SAMA (Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency) takes some action then I’m not sure when it will change. They must go to the banks and request they release financing for projects under a guarantee of payment from contractors and developers.

Mohamad H Al-Nagadi, president of the Saudi Building Code National Committee, speaking at the Building Expansion conference Riyadh.

The world is going through a dark economic tunnel but the atmosphere of the construction industry in Saudi Arabia is booming. You can judge that by taking the government expenditure as evidence of the boom.

You just have to look at the huge mega projects, the expansion of cities and the new infrastructure project in every corner of the kingdom to answer your question. Even though Saudi Arabia is part of the global society, thank God we are less affected by this financial crisis and government policy has helped us through this period.

Mohammed A Hammad, manager of central and western region projects for Saudi Aramco, president of the PMI Arabia chapter, speaking at the Building Expansion conference.

The fundamental economics of the kingdom are strong and praise to God our financial institutions have not been affected much by the global financial crisis. And most importantly we can see that the Saudi government is proceeding with its very ambitious investment program.

Look at all the economic cities that are starting up across the country, these are very much supported by King Abdullah himself and things are taking shape. Every year we see the government invest in new construction programmes and with them leading the way, private investment and contractors will follow.

Likewise Saudi Aramco is proceeding with its projects. We are making gas and energy projects a priority to meet local demand. The other oil programmes are proceeding as per normal but perhaps at a slower pace while we look at when we might need to meet higher demand for oil in the market.