Construction project awards in KSA to drop by up to 40% this year.

The awarding of construction projects in Saudi Arabia is forecast to drop by between 20-40 percent this year, according to a report from the Saudi Contractors Authority (SCA).

The authority expects the industry to take a hit from the restrictions imposed as a result of the current Covid-19 pandemic and the measures taken to mitigate its spread.

The report revealed that 48 percent of the construction projects in the kingdom for 2020 were awarded at the beginning of March, when the spread of the deadly virus was very much in its infancy.

It said that the value of projects awarded for the first three months of the year was SR97.5 billion ($26bn). While it estimated that, should the lockdown continue for the next six months, the value of total projects would hit SR120bn ($32bn).

“Large-scale new infrastructure projects are being impacted, with major impacts on the construction industry,” the authority said.

Saudi Arabia currently boasts the highest number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across the GCC (91,182), while 589 people so far have lost their lives in the kingdom as a result of Covid-19.

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