Gulf Times reported that steel prices in the UAE have risen about 15 % so far this month as a construction boom in the GCC oil exporter has drained the building materials market.

Dealers said that a tonne of reinforcing steel bar fetched around USD 1,550 up from around USD 1,350 in the last week of June. An executive from a Gulf steel producer said he expected prices to hit USD 1,650 a tonne by the end of the month.

A Sharjah based trader said that prices of steel and other construction materials have not eased, even for a single week, since the beginning of the year and I don't see any signs of a downward trend. What we have now is limited supplies of steel, higher demand from construction contractors and costs of manufacturing steel at origin are going up due to inflation in these countries.

As per the report, global rebar consumption reached 218 million tonnes in 2007. Around 65 % to 70 % of consumption comes from the Middle East and Asia while the highest consumption per capita is in the UAE.