Arabian Business reported that the amount of construction projects cancelled and delayed in the United Arab Emirates rose to USD 170 billion in August signalling the battered sector in the Gulf state is still away from a recovery.

The MENA construction projects tracker report by Citi showed that UAE accounts for 56% of the total cancelled and delayed projects for the main regional markets. The cancellations are an increase of 13% since July. Unsurprisingly cancellations in the UAE relate predominantly to real estate.

UAE's property boom ended in 2008 with home prices in the Dubai emirate plunging by about 60% forcing many developers to abandon projects.

According to a bond prospectus, Dubai developer Nakheel which overstretched itself by building islands in the shape of palms and other ambitious projects, wrote off up to AED 78.6 billion of its real estate assets due to a property crisis. Meanwhile, projects cancelled and on hold across main MENA markets dropped slightly to USD 1.69 trillion in August from USD 1.7 trillion in July.

In other markets, Saudi Arabia added USD 81 billion of preliminary projects to its pipeline since July highlighting the growth potential in the market. Kuwait and Qatar also have projects worth USD 20 billion and USD 2 billion respectively that are in preliminary stages of construction. In contrast, UAE showed USD 12 billion decline in preliminary projects to USD 118 billion.

(Sourced from www.arabianbusiness.com)