The Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) announced that the GCC building materials industry was ranked third in terms of cumulative investments in 2014. This sector was the target of more than 37 billion USD, about 9.8% of the total cumulative investments in manufacturing industries valued at approximately 380 billion USD. There were 2858 factories (about 17.5% of the total number of manufacturing factories amounting to approximately 16292 in 2014). About 259.4 thousand workers were employed in this sector (17% of the total 1.529 million workers).

GOIC’s new publication “Building Materials Industry Director in the GCC Countries” (and Yemen) highlighted these figures. The Directory that was published recently is available at GOIC’s Gulf Industrial Knowledge Centre http://www.knowledge.goic.org.qa. In this regard, GOIC Secretary General Mr. Abdulaziz Bin Hamad Al-Ageel stated: “Building materials industry is a key sector in GCC countries, for it is a pillar of development and progress.” He added: “The boom in the Gulf was paralleled with the construction of several residential, industrial, commercial and leisure cities, in addition to infrastructure and public facility projects according to the different needs and development plans of GCC countries.”

Al-Ageel explained: “This Directory is part of a series of specialised industrial directories issued by GOIC to provide information regarding the industrial sector, making the data accessible to the largest number of decision and policy makers, investors and researchers in this field.”

The building materials industry includes several industrial activities according to ISIC as follows: manufacture of glass and glass products, manufacture of refractory products, manufacture of clay building materials, manufacture of other porcelain and ceramic products, manufacture of cement, lime and plaster, manufacture of articles of concrete, cement and plaster, cutting, shaping and finishing of stone and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products n.e.c.

Since its foundation, GOIC endeavours to spread knowledge and provide information relating to the industrial sector to the largest number of decision and policy makers, investors and researchers in a variety of ways. In this regard, a team of GOIC’s elite experts worked on completing a large set of specialised periodical publications on various industrial sectors in GCC

countries and Yemen, in addition to multi-client studies, periodicals, Gulf statistical profiles, and a variety of analytical and statistical books about key industrial sectors. In the future, GOIC will continue to issue similar publications to become reference materials for economy professionals in general, and industrialists in particular.