Dubai construction firms are stepping up plans to expand into Gulf markets less badly hit by a property downturn than the former boom town, where prices have been hit and projects delayed. Building companies in Dubai said yesterday they had their sights set on Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where expansionary government budgets and promises of sustained economic growth would help them ride out a downturn at home. Dubai residential real estate prices have already lost at least a quarter of their value since peaking late last year. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of property projects have been scrapped or postponed in the United Arab Emirates, the second-largest Arab economy, in recent months. “Saudi Arabia is definitely the place where growth is going to be sustained for the next two to three years,” Saleh Muradwiej, an executive director at Dubai contractor Drake & Scull, said at a construction meeting in UAE capital Abu Dhabi. Reuters

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