Tender talk

Stuart Matthews, Senior group editor.

Contractors will be pleased to see the recent flurry of tender announcements.

Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) is at the forefront, with pre-qualification requests for main contract works on the new Saadiyat Golf Villas, as well as piling works for the Guggenheim museum. TDIC is also active in Al Ain, with a major earthwork and enabling works tender up for grabs.

Elsewhere in Abu Dhabi Department of Transport has released tender documents for a road improvement project in the Musaffah industrial area. The contract covers study, design consultancy services and construction supervision.

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The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) continues to pump out tenders too. Those with a few specialist engineering skills to hand could find much in the way of sub stations to keep them busy. But the authority also needs the more mundane support structures that go along with any large organization.

Water infrastructure, roads and healthcare facilities are the areas where Qatari tenders are concentrated. Those from Saudi Arabia follow a similar profile, there are just more of them and they are bigger. You can see what I mean if you check out our tenders online at www.ConstructionWEEKonline.com/tenders.

An active tender market gives the impression of an industry finding its feet again, at least for the larger contractors. With many of the available contracts coming from government sources there is reasonable hope that the tenders will be awarded and work get underway.

As sub-contracting work from these and other jobs spreads through the industry maybe some of the smaller businesses will find their feet too.