Dubai has been ranked among the top ‘Construction Mega Cities’ (those having a pipeline of projects worth over $30 billion) for 2019 along with London and New York in a list compiled by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData has been tracking large-scale construction projects in all sectors, and following a recent assessment of project pipelines in major cities worldwide, it has compiled a listing of 50 “Construction Mega Cities” for 2019.

Dubai dominates the 2019 list with total project values amounting to $611.2 billion, ahead of London which comes in the second place ($342.9 billion) and New York in third ($285.2 billion), while Moscow slipped to fifth place ($201.4 billion) when compared to the 2018 rankings.

The combined value of the project pipelines in these cities stands at $5.3 trillion, and includes over 8,200 projects at various stages of development, from announced to execution.

Seven new cities have made it to the Top 50 “Construction Mega Cities” for 2019 list namely Istanbul, Tokyo, Fuzhou, Zurich, Atlanta, Zhengzhou and Las Vegas.

The combined value of the project pipelines for those new entrants stand at $379.75 billion, and includes 505 projects at various stages of development. The Asia-Pacific region dominates the list, accounting for 25 of the 50 cities, and has a combined projects pipeline valued at $2.1 trillion.

As per UN statistics, today, more than half of the world lives in an urban area. By 2050, this number is expected to increase to some two-thirds of the world’s population,

While this may lead to overcrowding in cities, and overuse of resources, it also presents companies in the construction industry with major opportunities for growth, stated GlobalData.

From 2007 to 2025, GlobalData expects the cities’ combined gross domestic product (GDP) to increase by more than $8 trillion to $20.4 trillion. They will be home to an estimated 527 million inhabitants, many being in China and other emerging markets that are witnessing a fast pace of urbanization.

GlobalData projects that average per capita GDP in these cities will rise from $1,791 in 2007 to $2,263 in 2025, in real terms.

Yasmine Ghozzi, Economist at GlobalData, said: "Of the 50 ‘Construction Mega Cities’, 29 are considered to be in emerging markets. The rapid growth of cities in the emerging regions reflects both above-average population and per-capita GDP growth."

"The population of those 29 emerging-region cities will reach an estimated 327 million by 2025, at an annual increase of 1.8% from 237 million in 2007. At the same time, GlobalData projects that the real GDP per capita (measured in real terms) in these emerging urban centers will increase by 2.4% from $520,854 to $820,311 between 2007 and 2025," he added.-TradeArabia News Service