Apart from the major countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, other countries in the GCC region are also expected to fuel the growth of structural steel demand. According to Frost & Sullivan, the demand for structural steel in Qatar for instance, is estimated to grow between 5 percent to 7 percent owing to the large infrastructure projects such as New Doha International Airport, Doha Metro Rail Project, Subsea Tunnel etc. The backbone of the infrastructural development in Qatar would be revolving around the National Development Strategy and Vision 2030 coupled with the planned investment of around $75 billion for infrastructure to cope with the FIFA 2022. Similarly other GCC countries are also expected to provide market momentum through proposed investments in commercial and industrial sector. The preference from the project consultants and EPC contractors is expected to shift from imports to local supply owing to the structural steel products availability and competitive price levels. RNCOS said in its study released earlier per capita steel consumption of the country stood at 3rd place in the GCC region behind Qatar and the UAE in 2010. The Kingdom's most important sector for the steel consumption is construction sector as the country is at the forefront of construction activities in the Gulf. To respond to the fast growing demand, huge capacity expansion programs are underway in the Saudi Arabia steel industry, and it is expected that, these will have an impact on steel imports in future. According to the report “Saudi Arabia Steel Industry Forecast to 2013”, the consumption of steel is anticipated to gain an uninterrupted momentum from the government backed massive infrastructure projects. Government sources said an estimated $400 billion investment will be spent on large infrastructure projects during the next five years. This will further boost the steel demand in the country and take iron and steel consumption to over 26 million metric tons by 2015. Saudi Arabia, the second largest sector in terms of iron and primary steel production capacity and the largest in terms of infrastructure spending, has led to the transformation in the GCC infrastructure scenario in recent years.
