Muscat: The GCC projects market index rose by 0.2 per cent to $2.49 trillion as of the third quarter of 2012.

According to MEED’s Gulf Projects Index, a comprehensive and up-to-date tracking system of projects that are either underway or planned throughout the region, the continuing growth in the GCC’s projects industry was driven by strong growth in the UAE and Kuwait projects market; while Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia remained steady.

Oman’s projects market actually recorded the biggest fall in the GCC, with its index slipping 0.5 per cent in the last week of the third quarter; but despite its week-on-week fall, Oman continues its growth trend, with the value of its projects sector rising 12 per cent compared with the same period in 2011.

“The growth of the projects industry in the GCC continues to have an impact on the overall development of the region. It is within this context that we established the awards to recognise quality projects and acknowledge their merits -” to create a standard of projects that needs to be lived up to.

Once you recognise quality projects, others are motivated to live up to that standard and in the process push the boundaries for the projects industry as a whole,- said Edmund O’Sullivan, chairman of the judging panel of the 2013 MEED Quality Awards for Projects, in association with Ernst Young, an independent awards recognition scheme established to recognise project excellence across several categories.

The MEED Quality Awards for Projects, in association with Ernst Young, is the only awards programme in the GCC to recognise completed projects and evaluates the outcome of the construction process.