Spotlight on Saudi

Saudi Arabia is undergoing a huge rise in construction, but how is the regional industry coping with the vast demand? Hugo Berger reports on the current challenges facing the sector in the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia's construction sector is already so huge that it is even dwarfing that of the UAE. With around a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves, the vast wealth of the region is stimulating private and public sector investment in new construction projects.

The landmark Kingdom Centre and Al-Faisaliah Tower in Riyadh are both symbols of the country's attempts to be a world leader in futuristic construction. Jeddah's corniche is undergoing huge development and soon tenders are expected to go in for the world's tallest tower, which is rumoured to be a mile (1.6km) in height.

Construction plans underway

Coinciding with the launch of new buildings, the government is planning an expansion of infrastructure. There are plans for new schools, factories, desalination plants, ports and electrical power stations.

Elsewhere, US $86.6 billion (SAR324.8 billion) has been earmarked to build six new economic cities. These include plans for an industrial city at Sudair, north of Riyadh, which will be at least 70% bigger than Emaar's King Abdullah Economic City.

The emerging sector of tourism is also starting to provide substantial construction work. A $1 billion seafront project spread over more than three million m2 of reclaimed land between Al-Khobar and Dammam is planned to provide hotels, apartments, a marina and a man-made lagoon. And road projects of a massive scale are on the drawing board.

These include discussions between Egyptian and Saudi authorities on a $3 billion project for a causeway across the Red Sea between Dibah and Sharm Al-Sheikh. Also in the pipeline is a major expansion of the rail network, with projects such as the $2 billion 2,400km North-South Railway.

Air travellers will also benefit from the boom, with the $1.5 billion expansion of King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah. The project will boost passenger capacity from 13 million to 30 million to cope with the huge number of pilgrims who visit the nearby Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina.

Safety concerns

The high price of oil has clearly led to an unprecedented expansion. But this boom has been coupled with ever-increasing inflation, which hit a 25-year high in February at 8.7%. This, as well as issues that are common to other countries in the GCC, such as skills and materials shortages, may hamper the construction boom some experts predict.

Also, serious concerns have been raised about safety standards in Saudi, with reports showing there are a high number of accidents. Husain Al Omani, project manager for Al Tamimi, surveyed worker welfare by visiting sites across the country in 2005 and 2006.

His report, Improving Safety Performance at Construction Sites in Saudi Arabia, stated that 25% of contractors did not give new workers orientation; 25% did not provide personal protective equipment and 38% had no trained safety personnel. He found that in the UK in 2005, there were 3,760 injuries to workers and 28 deaths. In the same year in Saudi there were 102,259 injuries and 493 deaths.

Omani says: "There is very poor safety education, and education about how it will affect the performance of the project or the operations. I know that the number of accidents in Saudi Arabia is a lot higher than other countries in the GCC, even though most of them are not perfect."

Elfatih Idris is the general sales manager of Saudi Liebherr, one of the largest crane providers in the Kingdom. He agrees that there are serious safety issues that need addressing. "The main issue is the safety of crane operators. We provide a lot of training, especially for the large clients like the Bin Laden Group," explains Idris.

"We train project managers, operators and the like to explain how to maintain and run the cranes. The big companies are very interested in this, but some of the smaller crane operators are not so interested," he adds.

"The small companies are into an economically cheap solution, which means they are less interested in training, with some of them allowing untrained people to operate cranes."

A project manager on a major project, who asked not to be named, agreed that more regulations were needed. He says: "I have been here for about five years and before I came here there was very little health and safety training going on. We have all tried to improve things since then by rationalising and bringing the contractors up to speed, because until recently they had no knowledge whatsoever."

He adds there are technical courses run by the municipality, but few of these include safety training. "You then wonder why guest workers are run over on bridges or die of heart attacks in their camps because of stress and sunstroke during the day," he adds.

"It's all basic stuff, but we are trying to get things moving forward and have similar standards to elsewhere in the world," he states.