DUBAI - Dubai-based Arabtec Holding, the UAE's largest construction firm by market value, expects its performance next year to match 2009's effort at best, the company's chief financial officer said Tuesday.
"2010 at best will be the same as this year. Many projects that started in 2007 and 2008 will be finishing," Ziad Makhzoumi told Zawya Dow Jones on the sidelines of the Big 5 International Building and Construction Show in Dubai.
"We won't see any growth in 2010 versus 2009. I don't expect to see reasonable measurable growth before 2011," Makhzoumi added.
Makhzoumi said that since the beginning of the year Arabtec's order backlog has stood at 28 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($7.6 billion) and this hasn't changed.
"I expect it to stay around this level give or take AED1 billion," he said.
In terms of unpaid bills, Arabtec has matched its receivables and payables for the past three quarters.
"We hope that the promised liquidity will also come our way," said Makhzoumi.
Arabtec is also looking to develop new business in markets that "can offer the same dynamics that Dubai offered in its growth days."
The company is increasingly diversifying away from dependence on contracts in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates where the building industry is under pressure from a collapse in real estate prices.
Arabtec is building Europe's tallest tower in St Petersburg, which will be the headquarters for Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom.
"We're looking at projects in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Algeria," Makhzoumi added.
In September, Arabtec chief executive Riad Kamal told Zawya Dow Jones that the firm hopes to conclude several contracts by the end of the year and is currently tendering for projects in countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Algeria.