Construction

Since most of Ghana’s building materials are imported to the country, the devaluation of the cedi has driven prices upward and had a profound effect on the cost of construction and availability of materials. In order to ease transactions for construction firms and boost broader economic growth, the government is working to further increase...

With demand for mass housing thriving and transport, energy and other infrastructure projects continuing to roll out, the kingdom’s construction sector faces the challenge of meeting a wide range of demands at a time of economic slowdown.

Few sectors in Jordan have been more dramatically impacted by recent regional turbulence and uncertainty than housing. With large numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing into Jordan over the past few years, there has been major pressure on low- to middle-income real estate, with the government, developers and international organisations working...

As with many African property markets, Gabon has seen its different subsectors evolve in very different ways. Gabon has an estimated housing deficit of 200,000, concentrated on middle- and low-income earners, but there is a growing oversupply in the high-end segment. Despite empty units, high-end property remains expensive, especially in the...

According to the IMF’s 2015 Article IV consultation with Gabon, the early years of the Emerging Gabon Strategic Plan (Plan Stratégique Gabon Emergent, PSGE) proved to be a significant boon for the construction sector. The IMF reported that “high oil revenues funded a scaling up of public investment that helped propel overall growth to nearly 6...

Although they benefitted from more than SR220bn ($58.7bn) per year in new contracts between 2011 and 2014, according to National Commercial Bank, many Saudi construction firms have seen their margins squeezed by escalating costs in recent years. One of the greatest challenges in balancing their books has been the impact of new labour...