GCC countries must collaborate and share information about plans for more than 100 megaprojects with an aggregate of almost $1 trillion to be delivered in the region by 2025, a major construction summit was told today.

The value of new project awards in the GCC will reach a new record level in 2015-19 and the region will be one of the world’s leading markets for the global construction industry, said Arabian World Construction Summit (AWCS) chairman Edmund O’Sullivan, speaking at the summit’s opening session at the Sofitel Hotel in Dubai.

“These projects include the GCC railway, Dubai’s World Expo 2020 capital programme, Qatar’s Fifa World Cup 2020 facilities, huge urban transport schemes in Saudi Arabia and unprecedented energy projects in Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait,” O’Sullivan said. “They will sharply lift the growth rate in the region and create hundreds of thousands of new GCC jobs, but more needs to be done to co-ordinate these projects at a regional level and to share the knowledge the GCC will acquire in megaproject delivery.

“There are huge opportunities but massive challenges for the GCC projects supply chain from planning to operations and maintenance,” O’Sullivan said. “Meed is already working with our customers and stakeholders in the GCC projects industry to identify and overcome these challenges, but more needs to be done at the regional level to ensure competition for resources is managed and potentially unsustainable cost rises are contained.

O’Sullivan called for the creation of GCC megaproject information and excellence centres where facts and knowledge about megaproject delivery can be stored and shared.

More than 350 delegates, speakers and guests will attend the AWCS, which runs until May 14. A total of almost 50 speakers will address the event. - TradeArabia News Service