The Joannou & Paraskevaides Group, better known as J&P, ranks consistently in the ENR top International Building and Civil Engineering Companies in the world. In a multitude of terrains and climatic variations, on projects as diverse as airports, industrial, commercial and residential buildings, roads, highways and bridges, sea ports, power stations & distribution grids, water and sewage and oil & gas installations, J&P delivers work of outstanding quality and importance.
Today the company employs more than 32,000 personnel, operates in 9 countries.
J&P’s history and achievements are both long and remarkable.
Following the end of the Second World War, J&P began significant works in the civil sector and for the next 20 years it was a major contributor to the infrastructure of emerging Cyprus. J&P built blocks of flats and a variety of housing units, theatres, small factories and civic buildings, and its project portfolio quickly expanded. J&P built the holiday complexes and tourist developments which would form the bedrock of the Island's emerging industry. By the time Cyprus gained independence in 1960, the writing was on the wall: The foundations for an international company had been laid. J&P had resources that could be given no further challenges in the local market. It was time to look beyond the Cyprus shores.
J&P's first overseas involvement was in Libya in 1961. The country had just started exploiting its oil reserves with the collaboration of international oil companies. It was a promising venue and a major challenge because of the harsh terrain and lack of basic infrastructure.
Joannou & Paraskevaides (Overseas) Ltd was formed and took up the challenge. The new company was soon awarded major contracts at the British Air Force base of El Adem, quickly followed by large housing projects for the Libyan Government and a series of sea ports. These led to civil works projects for the oil companies and soon J&P became noted for its ability to work in challenging conditions; against the desert sun, amid the endless sand, J&P delivered.
By 1969, the company decided to expand further.
It began in Saudi Arabia, at Dhahran Airport, building the new aprons and extending and resurfacing the runway and taxiways. The excellent performance in both quality and time terms earned the recommendations of the client and consultants. It was then awarded the contract to build the entire Seeb International Airport on virgin ground by the Sultanate of Oman, similarly completed in time and of excellent standards.
As investment poured into the region, J&P became a major participant, building highways, tunnels, bridges and flyovers in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. From the ground up, J&P built huge housing complexes and whole towns with comprehensive infrastructure. There followed sports stadia, shopping malls, medical centers and luxury hotels.
It was also in Libya in 1985 that the company started its oil & gas sector activities. J&P executed projects for all of the oil companies in Libya: flow lines, trunk lines, major transmission pipelines, GOSP’s, gas lift and processing plants, power generation, water injection systems, storage tanks, export terminals and distribution centers were successfully completed and on occasions early completion bonuses were awarded to the company.
The oil and gas experience gained in Libya was lately used in winning and executing significant projects for Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia and for the VITOL group in Cyprus.
J&P’s oil and gas activities quickly grew to claim a significate of the Group’s turnover.
In Pakistan J&P was awarded major road projects, and large irrigation infrastructure works, followed by the construction of the entire International Airport in Lahore.
There were road projects in Ethiopia, large housing projects in Algeria, roads, hospitals, housing complexes and hotels in Qatar, and also the new Queen Alia International airport in Amman, Jordan.
In Egypt J&P was awarded and successfully completed two luxury hotel projects, one of which is the prestigious Four Seasons Hotel at Sharm El Sheikh.
J&P delivered excellent work and potential clients got to know. The J&P Directors knew it was time for further expansion and Europe was the next destination.
Beginning in Greece, J&P won numerous contracts to build hotels, hospitals, and highways. These were followed by contracts for petrochemical plants, refineries and large industrial and commercial complexes. The Group was a major partner in the consortium that built the largest project in Greece's history, the Rion-Antirion Road Bridge; a vast, magnificent structure, spanning the beautiful Gulf of Corinth. In 2004, when the eyes of the world were turned to Athens and the nation that founded the Olympic Games 3,000 years earlier, J&P was there, a major contractor on the majority of facilities that had made the Games such a huge success despite gloomy forecasts.
The Company established beyond doubt its ability to cope in almost any kind of conditions and display a level of professionalism and an end product on a scale that few other companies can match. In the fast-paced, ever-changing world of precision construction, the importance of technological innovation remains uppermost in J&P. There is a realization that J&P must be kept at the cutting edge of innovation.
In Cyprus, J&P built the highways that link, through tunnels and mountains, the four main cities of Cyprus and constructed new dams that vastly increased the island's water resources as a relief to drought. In the field of Land and Property Development J&P built ambitious housing complexes, multi-stoery residential buildings, flagship offices, commercial centers, and tourist resorts,
In a zone of operations that now stretches from the Gulf States and the Middle East through North and East Africa to Asia and Eastern Europe, J&P has established a global network service with excellent material and personnel capability. Wherever the projects take J&P, its reputation is a portfolio of projects that has changed the lives of whole regions.
J&P offers new and innovative solutions to challenging construction needs of any size. This includes procurement of financing for projects of special interest, establishment of BOT consortia and undertaking turnkey projects.
J&P has come a long way and this is evidenced of the multibillion projects it won during the last two years in the Gulf States.
Yet 74 years on from a short emergency runway extension in 1941, having embraced the most advanced technologies in the construction industry, tackled some of the most difficult and challenging works and delivered various landmark projects, there is still something about the J&P Group that does not change:
Every day, just like the first day, J&P goes out to do what it has always done: build to the full satisfaction of its clients and participate in their success.
