Gulf Arab construction sector challenged, despite gradual rebound (3)

Comments from industry experts to Xinhua on the industry outlook sound similar. Royee Han, who is an account manager at China National Building Material Company or CNBM said that whilst the Gulf region was "promising," growth was still slow. "We still feel the fallout from the financial crisis," said Han.

Thorsten Schneider, business unit manager Gulf region at Germany's industrial giant Henkel Group and the world's largest producer of glues, said he was more bullish on Saudi Arabia than on the UAE, not only because Saudi Arabia has the region's largest population, but also "The kingdom has a housing gap of 5 million homes, while residential construction in the UAE is much more volatile and speculative," said Schneider.

The UAE is DSI's home market. Since its 2012-peak the DSI share hit in April, the stock lost 18 percent in value.

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