Business & Money | Wednesday 7 January, 2015 1:23 am |

Prices of building materials have dropped by up to 20 percent, and are expected to decline further with a noticeable decrease in demand, Al Eqtesadiyah daily said, quoting experts.
Analysing the trend, Raid Al-Aqaili, a former member of the contractors committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), said 2014 witnessed stability in the prices of building materials which was a natural response to the fall in the prices of energy globally.

He noted that the prices of steel have also fallen globally to reach 20 percent in 2014 and more reductions are expected in the coming months.
Al-Aqaili attributed the low demand for building materials to current global recession on the one hand and the end of the government-led 9th five-year plans at the local level, on the other.
“The five-year plan government projects were the major consumers of building materials where more than 70 percent of government-funded projects had already finalized orders leading to decreased demand of supplies in the local market,” he explained.

Head of the Contractors Committee at JCCI Abdullah Rudwan said demand for building materials had dropped by 50 percent throughout 2014 because the demand for housing units was much less than the supplies for residential units available in the market.
He pointed out that many people have also expressed fears about the inferior quality of building materials being used by individuals or companies who are flouting the building standards and specifications.

Isam Attar, a dealer in building materials and sanitaryware, also said that the prices of basic building materials had fallen by nearly 20 percent in 2014 where prices of steel, cement blocks and concrete dropped by 6 percent, 14 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.