GCC needs additional capacity of roads with a railway infrastructure due to its rising population, which may further put stress on its existing infrastructure, according to a new report by Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz).

The GCC has historically focused its transportation investments in building roadways. This has ensured high quality of roads across most of the GCC countries.

The paved roads as a percentage of total roads in most of the GCC countries is close to 100 per cent as compared to other emerging countries average, which is below 75 per cent.

This can be mainly attributed to the significantly higher density of motor vehicles per kilometre of road in some of the GCC countries as compared to Brazil, Russia, India and China (Bric).

Among the six GCC countries four countries - the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar have significantly higher traffic density compared to rest of the countries.

Also, the higher density of vehicles is because of the low road density.

Other than Bahrain, the rest of the countries in the GCC have significantly low levels of road density.

Majority of the countries in the GCC fare poorly when compared to developed nations. The US and the United Kingdom have a road density of 0.68 and 1.72 respectively compared to say Saudi Arabia, which is at 0.10.

The lower road density and higher proportion of motor vehicles as compared to rest of the countries is the major cause for higher instances of road accidents.

The fatality rates in majority of the GCC countries compared to Bric countries and developed countries are significantly high.

In the US and the UK, the number of fatalities per 1,000 people is at 13.68 and 19.11 respectively. This is as compared to 30.7 in Oman and 26.32 in Saudi Arabia.

Even in comparison to the Bric countries, three of the GCC countries - Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high fatality rates.

On investments in the road sector in GCC, the report said that GCC is planning to invest $10.6 billion in the next 10 years. A total of $14.4bn was planned and of this $3.8bn worth of projects have been cancelled so far.

Of the total $3.8bn worth of cancelled projects $3bn is from Saudi Arabia alone.

Of the total $10.6bn worth of planned projects, Kuwait has a share of close to 40 per cent. On the other hand, railways, as a sector, never really made inroads in the GCC region; in fact, most GCC countries do not even have railway networks currently.

In Saudi Arabia, the only GCC country to have a railway, the network is still in the nascent stage.

The UAE has recently launched its Metro (the red line). However, the GCC's growing population is increasing demand for transport infrastructure.

Consequently, congestion on roads has increased.

Growing trade has also contributed to this.

This has spurred the governments of several GCC countries to look at inter- and intra-city railways as a viable option.

The UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar have already completed feasibility studies for national railway networks and are likely to commence on their plans in 2010. Saudi Arabia has also implemented a railways expansion project.

The supply-side analysis of expected investments indicates that the GCC could see investments totaling $109bn in railways over the next 10 years. This supply-side estimate is based on the announced projects in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the pan GCC project.

Although a few projects are reportedly being considered in Oman (for example, a railway line linking Sohar and Barka), these are in early stages and no details are available. A total of $113bn worth of projects were announced. Dubai has witnessed two projects aggregating to a value of $3.2bn being put on hold.

Looking forward, the GCC countries are expected to post strong growth rates on the back of revenues from hydrocarbon related sectors.

This is expected to lead to an increase in population growth rate due to an influx of expatriates.

Currently, the expats in the GCC countries form on average 60 per cent of the total population.

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