50 most influential construction suppliers in the GCC

Welcome to the first ever Construction Week power list – our exclusive countdown of the most influential construction suppliers in the construction industry.

Click here to view the Construction Week Power 50 List >>

Over the past six months, we have been examining in detail the work of construction suppliers all across the industry – from raw materials such as chemicals, to construction products such as formwork, and finished products, such as fittings.

These are the companies which we believe are truly shaping the industry. While the big name developers, contractors, engineers, designer and architects usually steel the glory and the limelight, these are the companies without whom there would be no industry. These are the unsung heroes, who between them have already left their mark in the construction history books.

From an initial list of over 200 companies, our editors have picked out what we believe to be the definitive list of the 50 most influential suppliers.

To rank the companies, we have a looked at a variety of criteria: the projects the companies have worked on, the technology used, innovation, historical record and financial performance.

So who is on the list? Topping the charts is the Saudi based Zamil Group. And they don’t come much bigger than the diverse operation run by the family company, which spans air-conditioning manufacturing to architectural glass processing, plastics to steel fabrication and paints and cranes to heavy process equipment. With 12,000 staff in 60 countries, its influence in construction supply has been second to none.

In second place is the Corus Group, Europe’s second largest steel producer with annual revenues of around $18 billion and a crude steel production of over 20 million tonnes. From roofs to floors and foundations, there is no part of the construction process that Corus is not involved in. Its main steelmaking operations are in Europe and The Netherlands.

Closely behind in third place is Ducab. With copper being the most volatile product when it comes to price, few people can doubt the contribution that Ducab has made to the industry since it was formed 31 years ago. In recent times it has supplied cables for some of the world’s prestigious projects the including the Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah, Grand Mosque, Burj Al Arab and Emirates Palace. More recently, it also worked on the brand new Mirdiff City Centre project.

While our list as been based on contributions to GCC projects, the strong presence of foreign suppliers is notable. At Number 14 on the list is China-based LiuGong, which during the past year has been recognized as an emerging leader in global construction equipment. With nine product lines in 80 countries it is now the largest global manufacturer of wheel loaders.

Our list contains 14 companies from UAE and eight from Saudi Arabia, but also touches on Germany, the UK, the US, plus other European and Asian nations.

As mentioned, our research began six months ago as we studied closely the work of over 200 suppliers from across the region. Having filtered the list down to 50 companies in late March this year, our team of 8 researchers and editors ranked positions 11 - 50 following a series of meetings.

Having agreed on the companies that we felt deserved to be in the top ten, we then used a voting system to decide the final placing: each of our team ranked the top ten companies with between 1-10 points (10 points for maximum score) – the top ten list was then compiled according to the most number of points attained by each company.