THE construction industry of Saudi Arabia holds major potential and is flourishing in the current economic environment in the kingdom, says a leading Saudi consulting engineer, cautioning however that the demand is now stretching resources.
“The kingdom is an engineer’s dream with so much work available that good consulting offices just can’t cope,” said Dr Tarek Shawaf, who heads Saudconsult, the multidiscipline architectural and engineering company he founded back in 1965.
According to Shawaf, no other country in this region can compare in size or demand with the construction sector of the kingdom and the recent announcement of the budget will provide an even greater impetus to the country’s growth and development.
Shawaf has witnessed the dramatic growth of Saudi Arabia since in the 1960s, when he worked with the Ministry of Power and Water. “I was responsible for the first water supply for a city of 185,000 people consuming 18 million gallons per day. Today, we have over six million people with consumption over 300 million gallons each day.”
Saudconsult has been overwhelmed with high levels of business over the past few years, he said. “In fact the problem we have is our inability to find qualified people we need to do the work,” said Shawaf who believes that the availability of English language speaking technical engineers has been exhausted by the rising levels of demand.
“Due to extreme competition for these resources, engineers are now pricing themselves out of the market despite the ongoing requirements for infrastructure in both Riyadh and Jeddah. Riyadh will see massive investments in public transportation projects including underground and light rail while Jeddah and Makkah are also very busy.”
With so much business available in Saudi Arabia, it is hardly surprising that Shawaf is not actively looking for any international projects. “In the past, we have been encouraged by the Saudi and Islamic development banks to work overseas in places like Mali, Senegal and Chad,” he said. “However, this type of work has never been profitable due to the costs involved. We could, of course, work in the Gulf region but why compete when we have so much work in the kingdom. We have, in fact, opened an office in Bahrain.”
Saudconsult’s international division is run from Bahrain.
With a staff strength now approaching 2,400, Saudconsult looks set to continue to benefit from the kingdom’s burgeoning economic environment.
Saudconsult is an award-winning multidisciplinary engineering and design firm with 50 years of experience in a wide array of projects. A front runner in architecture and building engineering, Saudconsult is behind the design and construction of some of the kingdom’s prestigious structures including the Ministry of Planning building in Jeddah, Dammam Water Tower, Taif Water Tower and Restaurant, the Riyadh Courts Complex, and housing and commercial facilities in the Diplomatic Quarter of Riyadh. It has also undertaken projects in Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Azerbaijan, and other countries.
