The aggregate value of contracts awarded in the GCC witnessed a 37.2% y-o-y drop to $47.4 billion in the third quarter, compared to $75.6 billion in Q3-2025. While all GCC countries recorded y-o-y declines during Q3, the overall GCC aggregate improved moderately at 2.5% in terms of the nine-month period.
All six GCC countries recorded double-digit annual declines in contract awards during the quarter. Oman posted the steepest fall, with awards plunging 96.6% year-on-year to $76 million, said the report by Kamco Invest, a regional non-banking financial powerhouse in Kuwait.
Saudi Arabia remained the region’s largest market, with $24.4 billion in contracts awarded during the quarter, followed by the UAE with $15.6 billion and Qatar with $5.2 billion, it stated.
According to the report by Kamco Invest, the GCC contract awards fell 19.2% on a quarterly basis. However, Qatar and Bahrain were the only exceptions, recording increases of 76.1% and 4.3%, respectively.
Despite the sharp quarterly decline, total GCC contract awards for the first nine months of 2026 rose 2.5% from the same period a year earlier to $204.1 billion, compared with $199.1 billion in the first nine months of 2025, it stated.
The slowdown in project awards comes as the region grapples with continuing geopolitical tensions, including disruptions to energy exports and trade routes and attacks on energy infrastructure. The disruptions are also expected to weigh on economic growth and governments’ ability to finance planned projects.
The GCC economy is forecast to contract 6.4% in 2026 before rebounding to 5.8% growth in 2027, according to forecasts from ICAEW and Oxford Economics cited in the report. The region’s energy sector is expected to shrink 26.9% this year before expanding 25.9% in 2027.
Saudi Arabia, the region’s largest project market, is forecast to see its economy contract 4.6% in 2026, while the UAE economy is expected to shrink 1.5%, according to the forecasts.
The Kuwaiti financial powerhouse said the sector performance was mixed as of the eight sectors tracked, chemicals and gas were the only two to record year-on-year growth in contract awards during the third quarter.
Chemical-sector awards rose nearly fivefold to $3.5 billion from $750 million a year earlier, while gas-sector awards increased 59.9% to $13.5 billion from $8.4 billion, it stated.
Construction remained the largest sector by contract value in the third quarter, despite a 44.7% year-on-year decline in awards to $14.8 billion, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
