Qatar’s construction sector outlook bullish for next one year: Pinsent Masons survey

Qatar’s construction sector has a bullish outlook for the next 12 months on account of many projects in the pipeline and also that Doha has now joined Singapore mediation convention, which encourages direct enforcement of cross-border settlement agreement between parties resulting from mediation, said a survey by a global law firm.
International law firm, Pinsent Masons, and Constructing Excellence Qatar have revealed the results of their 2019 Qatar Construction Improvement Survey – which is the first-of-its-kind ever produced for the country’s construction industry.
Eliciting the responses of 127 construction industry professionals, the survey found the majority of them expected an over 10% increase in workload in the next year, reaffirming Qatar’s 2030 vision and the projects that are expected to come to market in the next 12 months.
Additionally, transport was seen as a sector with the strongest opportunities, which correlates with Qatar’s ambition to expand not only its existing metro area coverage but also the Hamad International Airport (HIA), giving it the capacity to be the 13th largest airport in the world.
HIA recently unveiled its second massive expansion, which will see annual passenger capacity soar to 60mn. The expansion will also see the construction of a new cargo terminal that will increase capacity handled to an estimated 3.2mn tonnes per year and comes as part of Qatar’s well calibrated strategy to transform HIA into ‘destination in its own right, than just a gateway’.
“The results of the survey have been incredibly insightful and have provided us with a much deeper understanding in terms of what is working well in the sector and what still requires improvement,” said Pamela McDonald, senior associate, Pinsent Masons.
The survey also revealed that the vast majority of respondents agree that Qatar is a good place to do business in 2020. A large number of participants also expressed that they were considering PPP (public private partnership) opportunities being brought to market in Qatar under Ashghal.
As part of the presentation, specialists in Qatar’s construction sector offered some insights on key themes within the survey, especially the recent introduction of a unified form of demand guarantee letter announced by the ICC Qatar, which aims at attracting more foreign investment into Qatar.
McDonald also discussed changes in the dispute resolution landscape in Qatar including Qatar’s adoption of Singapore Mediation Convention on August 7, 2019, which provides robust enforceability confidence for users of mediation as an alternative to litigation and arbitration in Qatar.
The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation was signed by 46 nations in Singapore, which is intended to facilitate the enforcement of settlement agreements that have been entered into with the assistance of mediation.
The convention is likely to encourage parties involved in cross-border projects and deals to consider mediation as a time and cost efficient process as part of their dispute resolution mechanism.