A lower cost of construction, driven by the significant drop in prices of building materials, is encouraging greater activity with the Ajman property market, says a top contractor.

Sweet Homes General Contracting (SHGC), the in-house contracting arm of Sweet Homes Holdings, has revealed that it is fast-tracking construction processes to leverage the favourable prices of building materials. SHGC is a main general contracting company working on massive community projects such as Ajman Uptown.

Latest published reports reveal that the prices of cement, aggregates and sand in the UAE have stabilised or witnessed slight decrease last month, which was preceded by significant drops in the May and June rates.

The lower prices of construction materials were highlighted in the recent figures released by the Statistics Centre of Abu Dhabi (Scad) and the Abu Dhabi Government office, which compared rates in July versus the previous three months.

It shows the price of cement to have dropped by an average of 1.74 per cent, while aggregates and sand remained stable within the same period.

In addition, prices of lime gypsum, a key ingredient in cement and plasterboard, fell by 5.3 per cent compared to last month’s price to hit Dh1,250 ($340) a tonne.

Furthermore, prices of wood products such as Malaysian red timber, concrete blocks and clay tiles also held steady. Only construction steel from Turkey, the UAE, Korea and Japan has risen, recording a jump of 1.72 per cent.

“The monitored drop in construction prices will definitely boost the capacity of developers to continue the construction on their projects, and as the contracting company for one of the biggest community developments in Ajman, this presents an excellent opportunity that we intend to capitalise on,” said Fawad Sattar Dero, managing director, SHGC.

“As the market anticipates further reduction in prices due to global factors affecting the supply chain, our focus remains on the timely completion of all our current projects.”

At present, SHGC is working on several high profile commercial and residential projects, one of which involves a Dh2.2 billion main contract for ‘Ajman Uptown’, a Dh3.5 billion community project in Ajman.

“With the support and backing of Sweet Homes Holdings and the opportunity presented by the current development in construction prices, we maintain an optimistic view of Ajman’s real estate market. We are hoping that this break continues and lead to the total recovery of the market as a whole,” concluded Dero. – TradeArabia News Service