NEWS BRIEF 11“While incidents of crime are very low, we see many accidents within homes, including leaky air conditioning units, burst pipes, electrical fires and sometimes major

DUBAI | ABU DHABI | AL AIN | SHARJAH | JORDAN © Asteco Property Management, 2015 asteco.com | astecoreports.com

IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR 30 YEARS

ASSET MANAGEMENT SALES LEASING

VALUATION & ADVISORY SALES MANAGEMENT OWNER ASSOCIATION

RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

NEWS BRIEF 11 SUNDAY 15 March 2015


IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR 30 YEARS Page 2



REAL ESTATE NEWS UAE

WILL UAE DEVELOPERS GO FOR IT? 57-FLOOR TOWER BUILT IN 19 DAYS UAE RESIDENTS DILEMMA: RENTS OR LONG COMMUTES

UAE TO BUILD EGYPT’S ‘NEW CAIRO’

DUBAI UPDATE 1-CONSTRUCTION WORKERS STAGE RARE PROTEST IN DUBAI OVER

PAY DAFZA LEASES LAND IN AL GHUSAIS, IN TALKS WITH DUBAI GOVERNMENT GETTING HOME INSURANCE IS EASIER AND CHEAPER THANK YOU THINK,

COMPANIES SAY MAKING AFFORDABLE HOUSING A POSSIBILITY IN DUBAI

DIVERSIFYING DANUBE GROUP RECORDS AED2.3BN IN TURNOVER DUBAI WATER CANAL: YACHTS THROUGH AL WASL, JUMEIRAH BRIDGES

REMEMBER THE TIME: RENT STUDIO IN DUBAI FOR DH9,500 A YEAR WORLD'S TOP 5 RESIDENTIAL HOTSPOTS: WHICH DUBAI COMMUNITY ON

LIST? DUBAI LUXURY VILLAS: BEACH-FRONT OR GOLF COMMUNITY, WHICH

COSTLIER? ALL-INCLUSIVE DEALS HIT TOURIST SPENDING OUTSIDE SHARM EL SHEIKH

HOTELS CHINESE TOURISTS TO STREAM INTO DUBAI OVER THE NEXT DECADE

DUBAI’S DNATA TAKES MAJORITY STAKE IN IMAGINE CRUISING TRUMP MANSIONS LAUNCHED IN DUBAI - COMPLETE WITH PERSONALISED

GOLF CART ORASCOM RISES 2.8% IN FIRST DAY OF TRADE AT NASDAQ DUBAI CONSTRUCTION WORKERS RETURNING TO INDIA AS UAE LIVING COSTS

SOAR AND WAGES RISE BACK HOME’ THE TORCH BLAZE REIGNITES CONCERNS OVER CLADDING USED FOR DUBAI

TOWERS UNION PROPERTIES BUCKS THE TREND WITH FIRST CASH DIVIDEND IN 13

YEARS DUBAI PALACE PRICED AT DH110 MILLION AWAITS A VVIP

HOTEL RATES IN DUBAI DROP FOR SECOND MONTH IN A ROW

ABU DHABI MAIN CONTRACT FOR $1 BILLION AL MARYAH SHOPPING COMPLEX TO BE

AWARDED IN MAY ABU DHABI LUXURY HOUSING RISES FIFTH-FASTEST IN THE WORLD

ALL SHIPSHAPE UP ON DECK OF ABU DHABI BOAT-TOUR OPERATOR


IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR 30 YEARS



NORTHERN EMIRATES FALCON ISLAND DEVELOPMENT IN RAS AL KHAIMAH TO MOVE STEP CLOSER

OTHER

HOW OIL PRICE DROP IS AFFECTING PROPERTY IN EMERGING MARKETS BUSINESSES HIT AS EMIRATES, ETIHAD AND FLYDUBAI SUSPEND FLIGHTS

TO ERBIL AMLAK FINANCE AIMS FOR RETURN TO DFM TRADING AFTER SIX YEARS





UPDATE 1-CONSTRUCTION WORKERS

STAGE RARE PROTEST IN DUBAI OVER

PAY

SUNDAY 15 MARCH 2015

Hundreds of foreign construction workers staged a rare public protest on Tuesday outside the opulent Dubai Mall, one of the main tourist attractions in the United Arab Emirates, in a pay

dispute with their company.

Dubai authorities deployed riot police to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard in downtown

Dubai, where the world's tallest building is located, blocking some roads while negotiators tried to settle a dispute about overtime pay.

The workers, from south Asia, said the company had stopped overtime work and pay at a time

when basic salaries were too low.

The Dubai government media office, in a message over Twitter, said Dubai police helped to

resolve the dispute. "Within an hour, Dubai Police resolved issues of Fountain Views workers gathered in Boulevard demanding bonus," it said.

Details of the agreement between the protesters and the company were not announced, but

the company's general manager Hassan Auji later told Reuters that the workers' demands were not legitimate.

"Their main complaint was on incentives - which, by law, we are not obliged to pay," Auji said by telephone.

A Pakistani employee of Arabian Construction Co (ACC) who identified himself only as Mohammed said a worker's basic monthly salary was less than 500 dirhams ($136) and with overtime pay, one could make around 1,100 dirhams.

"We don't have overtime work anymore so we're striking. I'm not afraid to ask for my rights," he said.

The company said it was continuing to pay workers for some overtime but had cut back on incentive pay, which was used to speed up construction work but became unnecessary.

Protesters later also raised complaints about food allowances, medical services and

transportation, which were also resolved and did not have merit, Auji said.

Dubai, the business and tourism hub of the United Arab Emirates, is enjoying a construction

boom following its recovery from the 2008 financial crisis; hundreds of thousands of migrant workers staff the UAE's building sites. Dissent is tightly controlled and public protests are generally prohibited.





Source: Gulf News

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DAFZA LEASES LAND IN AL GHUSAIS,

IN TALKS WITH DUBAI GOVERNMENT

MONDAY 09 MARCH 2015

In an interview at Dafza headquarters in Dubai on Monday, Director General Mohammad Al Zarouni told Gulf News the Al Ghusais block will fit “32 industrial light units.” Construction will begin in late 2016.

The land is being leased from Al Wasl Properties following discussions with the Dubai government that began a year ago, Al Zarooni said.

Dafza has now engaged in further negotiations with the Dubai government to acquire another, larger block of land near the airport to build a business park. Al Zarouni said talks began six months ago but were still in the early stages. The business park will include offices, light

industrial units and hotels, he said.

Dafza is expanding outside its current location alongside Terminal 2 at Dubai International

Airport (DXB) because “there is no more land” with only “some space left for offices,” Al Zarouni said.

The freezone has “two or three” plots of land on its existing site but construction cannot be

higher than six stories because of the airport, he added. There are 260 light industrial units in the freezone.

Dafza will raise the capital for the expansion through a consortium of banks, Al Zarouni said but declined to state how much would be needed.

Dafza is owned by the Dubai government and has historically released very few financial

figures. It does not release actual profit or revenue numbers; only percentage increases. Al Zarouni affirmed the freezone is profitable.

“You think if we weren’t doing good we would be expanding outside?” he said.

A total of 17 companies registered with Dafza in January with sales revenue up 23 per cent compared to January 2014, Al Zarouni said. Earnings before Interest, and Taxes (EBIT) were 6

per cent higher than budgeted for January, he added.

Dafza is focusing on the Indian and Chinese market this year and is currently considering

opening its first international offices in India and Europe. A decision on the Indian office would be made in the next “two, three” months, Al Zarouni said.

Source: Gulf News

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GETTING HOME INSURANCE IS EASIER

AND CHEAPER THANK YOU THINK,

COMPANIES SAY

TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2015

Insurance companies say insuring home contents is easier and cheaper than most of us think, but only very few do it and, often, only after tragedy has already struck.

UAE laws require buildings to be insured - this includes the structure itself and common areas.

But contents of individual homes, in cases of residential buildings, are not covered, a fact most

residents are not aware of.

Only six per cent of UAE residents have home contents insurance based on a Zurich-commissioned survey in 2013, compared with 76 per cent in the UK.

Interest in home insurance peaked again days after The Torch tower fire on February 21 but insurers are unsure if this will translate into actual sales.

“While we all understand the necessity, it appears that a large proportion of this market cannot connect with the concept. In fact, we have noticed that it is only in the period following unfortunate events that people rush to purchase these policies,” David Harris, Director -

Affinity and Direct, UAE and Bahrain at RSA Insurance, told Gulf News.

Getting an insurance policy can be done online, personally, or facilitated by an agent through

the phone and can be done within at least five minutes.

The average premium per year is Dh700, with the minimum starting at Dh225 for a coverage

of Dh75,000 (prices vary). Some premiums, depending on the coverage, are below Dh2,000 but for high net-worth individuals, there is no limit.

Most residents accumulate belongings in their homes, which, if taken collectively, could be

very costly to replace.

“Some events, such as a fire, are not always in our control and could happen at any time.

Couple that with the fact that contents insurance could cost in one year as little as you’d pay for Salik or petrol in one month and the proposition becomes very reasonable,” Ramsey Chami, Head of Personal Property and Private Client Group - MENA at AIG, told Gulf News.

Residential fires make up the majority of fires reported in 2014. Some 220 fires took place in residential buildings, including apartments and villas, followed by skyscrapers, statistics from

the Dubai Civil Defence show.

In The Torch tower case, at least 35 out of the 676 apartments have home or contents insurance, companies that Gulf News spoke to said.





More than half of the insured homes did not sustain any damages, while some residents’ homes were devastated by the fire. Those affected have already received the first instalments

of their claims from their insurance company to help them start life anew.

Others whose homes are uninhabitable and have insurance with Zurich have been provided

paid alternative accommodation for up to one year until they can return to their apartments.

But it’s not only fires that should ring alarm bells for residents.

“While incidents of crime are very low, we see many accidents within homes, including leaky

air conditioning units, burst pipes, electrical fires and sometimes major incidents, such as the fire at The Torch tower. The losses resulting from these incidents can be devastating for

individuals and families. But if you have home contents insurance then at least you can make a claim to help you replace your lost items and start rebuilding your lives,” Zahir Sharif, General Manager UAE, Zurich Insurance Middle East, said.

Source: Gulf News

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MAKING AFFORDABLE HOUSING A

POSSIBILITY IN DUBAI


Any regulation to create mandatory affordable housing for “all new residential developments in Dubai” would have to push property values to around, or even below, the Dh600 per square foot (psf) level. Currently, around Dh700psf is rated as the most accessible pricing to put a

foot into Dubai’s property market.

“Residential stock in Dubai Investments Park can be got at under Dh700, and there could be a

couple of other freehold clusters where similar values could be quoted on some property units within,” said Chandrakant Whabi, CEO of Acrohouse Properties. “But there could be caveats

attached as the units may not offer balconies or will have cramped views.”

Locations such as International City and Discovery Gardens, which were aimed at the budget-conscious investor, had seen sharp upturns in 2013, and instantly putting them out of reach

for buyers in this category.

For the record, the priciest transaction for a villa in Dubai last year was for Dh58.3 million, for

a 7,613 square feet villa on the Palm, according to Luxhabitat.

This is why the proposal by Dubai Municipality to introduce affordable housing quotas for all new residential developments in Dubai is significant. Only such a move would force developers

to create a separate stock, even though they may be limited in numbers, which would encourage more of Dubai’s tenants to buy properties for their own use. (Dubai had in the

middle of the last decade sounded out similar options to create a stock of affordable housing, but which had to be put off after the financial crisis intervened.) Now, with transaction activity in the local market rather subdued, and the rental situation stabilising, the move to revive the

proposal could have better traction. “With the introduction of the Federal mortgage caps and the doubling of property registration fees [in Dubai], we saw genuine end users forced into a

holding pattern as they attempted to make the transition from rented accommodation to owner occupation,” Steven Morgan, CEO of Cluttons Middle East, said in a statement on Sunday.

“Now, with rents starting to show greater stability, households have a window of opportunity

to consolidate their finances and make that leap to owner-occupation. The prospect of those on monthly incomes of between Dh4,000 and Dh12,000 being able to control their rental

outgoings will no doubt go some way to aiding the speed at which deposits can be amassed.”

But creating affordable housing stock will not be easy in the more established of Dubai’s freehold residential clusters. Land value has been gaining steadily in the last 24 months, and if

developers were to offer units at “affordable” costs, they may have to “subsidise” the sale price. And compensate on the pricing they attach for the non-affordable housing they have

created in the same development.

Charting this particular course represents the obvious difficulty for a developer. And it could also upset the balance that is so vital for a city in how it expands outwards.





“Dubai is clearly not short of affordable neighbourhoods — Karama and Satwa are two key stand out areas that evolved organically at the edges of the Deira-Bur Dubai and Jumeirah

districts, respectively,” Faisal Durrani, Cluttons’ International Research and Business Development Manager, said.

“Karama and Satwa have over time been absorbed into the city, but we would strongly argue against deliberately creating affordable areas through the sanctioning of off-site affordable housing provisions as there are social implications to consider alongside the impact it can have

on the urban fabric of a city.”

Source: Gulf News

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DIVERSIFYING DANUBE GROUP

RECORDS AED2.3BN IN TURNOVER


A foray into property development and branded F&B (food and beverage) as well as organic growth in its core business of building materials aided a 15 per cent year-on-year gain in revenue growth for Danube Group. Turnover from building materials was Dh2.3 billion, while

the real estate subsidiary added another Dh500 million, the entity said in a corporate statement. It projects an 18-20 per cent growth this year.

“We were a little sceptical at the start of the year, especially with the results received in the first quarter,” said Rizwan Sajan, Chairman, Danube Group. “It was after March where the

growth curve took a steep hike, even though the market did not give any noteworthy results.

“Sales started picking up from the second quarter, and thereafter maintained an upward performance graph throughout the year. Our best months were June-July where the launch of

our realty division gave a boost to our performance for the year.”

The group launched two off-plan projects in Dubai, with both focused on the mid-market and

the end-user buyer, during the second half of the year.

Going forward, it plans to launch a men’s apparel brand, most likely towards the end of the year.

Source: Gulf News

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DUBAI WATER CANAL: YACHTS

THROUGH AL WASL, JUMEIRAH

BRIDGES

SATURDAY 14 MARCH 2015

Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the Roads and Transport

Authority (RTA) revealed that completion rate in Phase I of the Dubai Water Canal project had hit 40 per cent.

Works under Phase I include the construction of a bridge on the Sheikh Zayed Road comprising

eight lanes in each direction.

Phase II includes the construction of bridges on Al Wasl and Jumeirah Roads over the Dubai

Water Canal at a height of 8.5 metres allowing yachts to pass underneath.

Al Tayer also reported that completion rate in Phase II, which includes constructing bridges on Al Wasl and Jumeirah Roads, had reached 25 per cent.

The completion rate of Phase III that includes constructing a 3 km-long canal connecting the Business Bay Canal with the Arabian Gulf, had hit 15 per cent.

"The Contractor of Phase I of the Project started construction works in the Northern Bridge on the Sheikh Zayed Road in the direction of Dubai, nearby the Red Line of Dubai Metro. Fifty per cent of excavation works and casting of concrete piles have been completed, and the Northern

Bridge is expected to open in the fourth quarter of this year.

“The construction of the bridge in the direction from Dubai to Abu Dhabi would follow. The

company also embarked on constructing service roads in the Business Bay area after shifting the existing utility lines in situ,” explained Al Tayer.

Phase I of the project comprises constructing a bridge on the Sheikh Zayed Road crossing over

the Canal waterway in such a way allowing free navigation around the clock. Impacted roads would be rerouted to ensure a smooth traffic flow between the two shores of the new Canal.

The impacted part of Sheikh Zayed Road is about 800 metres long. “The project also includes shifting the existing utility lines impacted by the Canal course, in addition to the lighting and water fountains works on the bridge,” stated Al Tayer

Phase II

Work is progressing according to the plan in Phase II of the project, which includes the

construction of bridges on Al Wasl and Jumeirah Roads, with a completion rate of more than 25 per cent.

The contractor is currently constructing bridges on Al Wasl Road, where drilling works and casting of concrete piles and columns had been completed.





The company also started preparatory works of Phase II of the traffic diversion.

On Jumeirah Road, excavation works are underway to protect the utility lines in preparation for

constructing the traffic diversion.

It also includes the construction of a fully-fledged multi-tier flyover to link the traffic between

Al Wasl, Al Athar and Al Hadeeqa Roads in order to ensure full traffic flow upon the completion of the project instead of the existing traffic signals.

Works also include constructing bridges extending to the proposed peninsula at the southern

part of the Jumeirah Park.

“The contract also includes shifting the utility lines via conduits passing underneath the Canal,

in addition to laying spare conduits underneath the Canal to cater to anticipated future requirements,” added Al Tayer.

Phase III

"Completion rate in Phase III has so far exceeded 15 per cent. Work is currently underway to complete the protection of utility lines and the shifting of sewage lines on both sides of the

Canal, besides constructing sewage pumping station and coastal works for the breakwater.

"Earlier this year, the RTA has reopened the running track of Al Safa Park, which had been impacted by construction works; a step that reflects RTA's keenness to bring happiness to the

people by providing facilities for jogging or walking,” said Al Tayer.

It should be noted that phase III of the Dubai Water Canal Project includes digging the Water

Canal, building the Canal sides and constructing three pedestrian bridges linking the two sides of the Canal.

It also includes constructing four marine transit stations to enable marine transit modes offer convenient and effective water-transport, especially after the completion of several of islands in the Arabian Gulf, such as The World and Jumeirah 2.

Road safety

As the RTA is keen to ensure the safety of road users, it has developed a plan for traffic

diversions to ensure a smooth traffic flow.

The traffic movement has been diverted on both directions of the Sheikh Zayed Road as well as Al Wasl Road.

The engineering design of the temporary traffic diversion conformed to the specifications of the permanent road in terms of engineering design, surface & asphalt leveling, and the provision of

adequate lighting in accordance with the design speed of the road to ensure users' safety.

The same number of previous lanes in traffic diversion was maintained in order to ensure smooth traffic flow, and avoid adverse impacts on the intake of traffic volumes resulting in

traffic jams.

Contractor's work areas have been fully separated by high barriers to minimize the

inconvenience to road users and residents in adjacent areas.

Source: Emirates 24/7

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REMEMBER THE TIME: RENT STUDIO IN

DUBAI FOR DH9,500 A YEAR


Rents for apartments in Deira, the old Dubai, have risen by nearly five times in last three decades, a report by Asteco reveals.

The property consultancy said annual rents for studio and three-bed units stood at Dh9,500

and Dh25,000, respectively, in 1986, which in 2014 rose to Dh45,000 and Dh135,000, respectively.

The report, which tracks the evolution of Dubai’s real estate sector from 1985, was issued as the consultancy celebrates 30 years of operation in the emirate.

In 1985, oil was $32 per a barrel, (in 1986 it fell to less than $11) the average cost of a family

car was $9,000 (Dh33,000) and the average wage in the US was $22,000 (Dh80,750) per annum.

Between 1985 and 1995 there was little, if any, change in rental rates in the emirate, but in 1996 it gradually started to increase with studio units costing on average of over Dh14,000 a year and three-beds priced at an average of Dh28,000.

However in 1998 the Asian financial crisis, declining oil prices (a barrel was $17) and the bursting of the dot.com bubble later in the same year, all took their toll,” company Managing

Director John Stevens said in a statement.

In 2000, annual rents for studio and three-bed units averaged Dh16,500 and Dh34,000, respectively. The 9/11 tragedy in 2001 led to decline in studio rents 1995 levels, but started

off a regional economic upturn built on rapidly recovering oil prices.

A resurgent economy with new projects, companies, free zones, and mega-developments

fuelled rent increases. In 2005, studio rents average Dh17,000 per annum (pa) and three-beds at Dh41,000 pa.

As price of oil peaked to $147 in 2006-2007 and Dubai’s growth soared, rent for studios

reached more than Dh36,000 – almost Dh17,500 more than the previous year.

But the boom in studio apartment rents wasn’t to last for long as new supplies of studios and

affordable apartments in new Dubai areas such as Discovery Gardens and International City impacted Deira.

In Q4 2008, the global recession finally caught up with the region, oil prices tumbled and the

Dubai property bubble burst as prices plunged by up to 70 per cent in “extreme” cases and the credit crunch ensued, the report said.

Post 2009 and 2010, Dubai’s diversified economy started to pick up once again. The currently average apartment rent across the emirate is still 25 per cent lower than their peak in 2008.





“By contrast the studios in Deira rent for an average of Dh45,000 pa while the three bedroom apartments average Dh135,000 pa - five times more than what they were commanding in

1985,” said Stevens.

The consultancy expects that the Dubai market is set for a period of stability in 2015, with

softening sales activity for apartments and villas due to upcoming supply, following declining sales and rental returns in the second half 2014.


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HOW OIL PRICE DROP IS AFFECTING

PROPERTY IN EMERGING MARKETS


Global oil prices have fallen sharply in recent months, putting pressure on energy-exporting countries that count on the commodity as their primary source of income. Between June and January, the price of crude oil dropped a staggering 60 per cent.

With industry experts, including Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex W Tillerson, are now predicting that oil prices could stay low for at least two years, the recent fluctuations have led many to

speculate about the possible implications for global real estate markets.

Lamudi, an online real estate listing website for emerging markets, investigates the potential impacts on real estate markets in five key oil-producing nations in the emerging markets.

Saudi Arabia

As the world’s leading oil exporter, the commodity accounts for 90 percent of government

revenues in Saudi Arabia. As a result the country’s finances look set to take a considerable hit from the falling price of oil, with US bank Citi predicting in January that real expenditure would drop to $241 billion this year, down 18 per cent on the 2014 figure. Within the property sector,

the country is currently struggling to address a housing shortfall of around one million units, driven by significant population growth.

Qatar

The recent drop in oil prices is expected to have little impact on Qatar’s finances as the country continues to diversify its economy from its traditional role as an oil and gas exporter. As a

result, investment in infrastructure and property development is likely to continue at its current rate, resulting in continued growth in the country’s property market. The country’s

strong economic outlook - with growth of 7.7 percent forecast for this year - means spending on infrastructure and construction projects is likely to continue. In fact, real estate industry players have predicted that prices in the country’s rental market could stabilise due to an

increase in supply, as major real estate projects such as Lusail City get underway.

Nigeria

The Nigerian economy depends on crude oil for 70 per cent of its revenue so any drop in prices has a significant impact of the country’s primary source of income. Importantly, the majority of real estate projects in the country are government-funded, meaning that less funds will now be

available for property development. The company predicts that housing development outside of Nigeria’s larger cities could slow down as a result. “The question now is whether the low oil

prices are here to stay, or whether they will increase again in 12 months. This will determine how the real estate industry is affected in the long-term,” it states.

Mexico





Measures including tax reforms and government investment in housing are expected to underpin strong growth in Mexico’s property market in 2015. Meanwhile, reforms in the energy

sector are predicted to draw more international investors to the country. Together, these measures will largely offset any impact that the falling oil price will have on the real estate

market, as the government seeks to cut spending by $US8.4 billion because of the decline in revenues caused by the oil price drop. The company said: “The main stimulus to the property market will come from the government’s national housing policy, announced in January, which

is expected to trigger real estate investment of 370 billion pesos and pave the way for the construction of 500,000 homes.”

Indonesia

Lower oil prices are likely to impact Indonesia’s economy, as oil, oil services and natural resources industries such as coal - all of which constitute a significant part of the country’s

gross domestic product - are negatively affected. However, for end consumers the net impact has so far been marginal because lower oil prices have helped the government to reduce fuel

subsidies.

The website said: “Lower oil prices have limited impact on the property market as consumer's disposable income remains largely unaffected. Those working in the oil and natural resources

industries will be negatively affected, but the growth in the remaining economy should balance out and the resulting impact on real estate demand is limited.”


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WILL UAE DEVELOPERS GO FOR IT? 57-

FLOOR TOWER BUILT IN 19 DAYS

THURSDAY 12 MARCH 2015

Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), the developer of the proposed 838-metre pre-fabricated ‘Sky City’ in Changsha, China, calls its “country’s new normal.”

It has built a 57-storey tower (J57) in 19 days time, building three floors in a day, reveals a

time-lapse video released by company architect Xian Min Zhang shows the construction of J57, which claims the company built three floors per day.

The building has 19 atriums each of 10-metre high, 800 residential units and office space for 4,000 people.

According to Zhang, the use of its modular construction technique reduced the use of concrete by 15,000 trucks, which “nearly eliminated all the dust that is released during conventional construction.”

He claims all of the air inside the building is 99.9 per cent pure due to the tight construction and built-in air conditioning system and is energy efficient saving more than 10,000 metric

tons of carbon dioxide emission compared to a conventional building of the same size and use.

In 2013, Broad Group official told Emirates 24|7 that a number of GCC companies had visited their company and were interested in acquiring the technology, but no UAE company has still

adopted it to build hi-rises. Besides, in Dubai, these companies will have to get clearance from the respective authorities to use any such construction techniques.

However, Emirates 24|7 had reported March 2014 that Diamond Developers was building one villa a day using ‘precast concrete blocks’ in its Dh1.1-billion Dubai Sustainable City in Dubailand.

The emirate currently has 917 high-rises and 465 skyscrapers, which includes Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower and Princess Tower, the world’s tallest residential tower, Emporis, data

reveals.


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WORLD'S TOP 5 RESIDENTIAL

HOTSPOTS: WHICH DUBAI COMMUNITY

ON LIST?

WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2015

Business Bay, a mixed-use master community in Dubai similar to New York's Manhattan, has

been rated among the top five residential hotspots in the world by the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2015.

The master development finds a place among the elite locations following work starting on the

Dh7.34 billion Dubai Water Canal.

“Work has started on building a channel connecting the sea to the existing lake and this will

allow access for superyachts and sailing boats to the bay.

"Construction of large towers lining the channel is under way, providing residences with the unique benefit of mooring facilities in this central location,” the UK-based consultancy said in

the report.

It added that a 1,500 square feet apartment in the community could cost $680,000.

Emirates 24|7 reported earlier that $1 million (Dh3.67 million) can buy you an apartment in the emirate that is four and seven times bigger than Singapore and London.

Work on the canal is progressing at a fast pace, which will stretch three kilometres in length

and will have a width of 80 to 120 metres.

It will add six kilometres to Dubai’s waterfront and will provide an area of over 80,000 square

metres dedicated to public places, shopping and entertainment centres, over 450 restaurants along with a wide array of luxurious marinas for yachts and four world-class hotels.

The project, expected to be completed in 2017, will attract 20 to 22 million visitors per year.

Top places to live

St John Street, London

According to the report, St John Street, Clerkenwell, has led the loft-living trend for over 30 years. The demand for loft accommodation is increasing and scarcity is expected to drive prices up. Besides, the Tech City association will also drive the continued growth of high-

quality shopping and restaurants. A 700 square feet unit is priced at $1.3 million.

West Street, New York

West Street in Manhattan is one to watch. The street will form the new residential entrance to Brookfield Place, adjacent to the new World Trade Center complex, and will be lined with

world-class restaurants and luxury retail brands. West Street is a leader for the whole





downtown market, which is set for a boost over the next few years; value growth here should outpace the rest of New York by some margin. A 1,500 square feet apartment will cost $2.7

million.

Main Road, Cape Town

Main Road, Green Point, Cape Town, was initially boosted by the legacy of the World Cup, and huge investment was put into upgrading local infrastructure, such as developing parks, roads and a transport system. With world-class sports facilities, access to the waterfront, the city

centre and views of Table Mountain, this is the street to watch in 2015, the report states. A 700 square feet apartment will cost $200,000.

Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong

Sai Ying Pun neighbourhood is within close walking distance to central Hong Kong, but retains local charm. The area is near galleries, good shops and excellent local restaurants. While more

residential buildings have started to be developed in the area, there are still many opportunities for redevelopment. A 700 square feet apartment costs $1.9 million.


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UAE RESIDENTS DILEMMA: RENTS OR

LONG COMMUTES


Though you may have taken a conscious decision to rent an apartment in Northern Emirates and endure long commute to Dubai every day, the chief of Dubai Municipality suggests that residents should try and live close to their work place.

“We always want to encourage people to live close to their offices instead of travelling. Besides, we always encourage them to use mass transportation, such as the Metro and buses,”

Director-General Hussain Nasser Lootah told ‘Emirates 24|7’ recently.

“It is ‘affordable’ here, but people have to choose the right way… If you compare the areas (rents), you should also consider the cost of transportation, and time wasted in travelling.”

When asked if the government will come out with any regulations to provide ‘affordable’ housing in Dubai, he said: “We feel the government does not need to make any regulation… all

developers are providing these houses. We are concerned about green buildings and quality of building.”

Cluttons, a real estate consultancy, said surging rents, driven by the exceptionally strong

underlying demand, which was linked to the robust economic growth, has meant that household finances were coming under tremendous pressure on several fronts with a huge

pent up demand for affordable housing.

In November 2014, a report by Asteco, a property consultancy, said rents in Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah were almost two to three times lower than Dubai’s most

affordable communities.

In January, Abdulla Rafia, Abdulla Mohammed Rafia, Assistant Director-General for

Engineering and Planning Sector, Dubai Municipality, said the municipality was working on building self-contained communities, encouraging people to live near their workplaces.

“Townships that reduce the amount of commuting residents undertake is part of our plan for

Desert Rose and we believe any part of the city can adopt this principle.”

The Dh30 billion developments, being built near Al Ruwaya and Emirates Road, will consist of

20,000 homes for UAE nationals and another 10,000 units for expatriates in the affordable category. It will have a network of buses, light rail, and paths for pedestrians and cyclists.

“In Dubai you would have seen in the past 24 months that there are congested roads all over

the place. The reason for this is not that there are not enough roads or interchanges it is just that the population is not split correctly.

“We don’t want a future Dubai that is totally congested. We can’t have the metro line go to every house, but we need to set some policies to relieve us from the traffic jams that we have

now,” Rafia had stated.





In February, Lootah had said that Dubai was contemplating new regulations to limit the number of cars on roads and persuade residents to use more of public transport.


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DUBAI LUXURY VILLAS: BEACH-FRONT

OR GOLF COMMUNITY, WHICH

COSTLIER?


Average sale prices of luxury villas on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, a beach-front development, are now twice costlier than Arabian Ranches, a golf community, says a new report released on

Sunday.

In an analysis based on registered transactions with Dubai Land Department in 2014,

Luxhabitat, a Dubai-based real estate brokerage firm, said average prices touched Dh2,975 per square feet (psf) for Palm villas with total value of transactions reaching Dh1.35 billion.

According to data provided by Reidin to Emirates 24|7, average prices stood at Dh2,488 psf in

2013 and are now up nearly 20 per cent since last year.

In 2008-2009, prices had declined to a low of Dh1,400 to Dh1,500 psf on the reclaimed island,

which today has been named as a “must-see architectural wonder” by Expedia, an international travel website.

There were 74 transactions of units priced at above Dh5 million with the most expensive villa being sold for Dh58.5m.

Emirates 24|7 reported earlier that non-European ultra-high net worth individuals - those with $30m or above in assets – were investing in Dubai’s luxury property market over Monaco.

Besides, the UK-based Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2015 revealed that $1 million (Dh3.67m) could buy an apartment that was four and seven times bigger than Singapore and London in

the emirate.





The report put average prices of Arabian Ranches villas at Dh1,391 psf, with total value at over Dh558m. Average prices stood at Dh1,372 psf in 2013 and are up 1.4 per cent. In 2014, the

master community recorded 82 sale transactions.

A total of 422 villas, priced at above Dh5m were sold in 2014, with over 60 per cent of these

being in the above two area and Emirates Hills with highest average transaction per villa being Dh29m and average price of Dh2,343 psft. Prices have increased nearly 6 per cent compared

with 2013, when the average stood at Dh2,218 psf.


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FALCON ISLAND DEVELOPMENT IN RAS

AL KHAIMAH TO MOVE STEP CLOSER


China Harbour Engineering Company has won a Dh150 million contract for marine and infrastructure works at Al Hamra Real Estate’s Dh1 billion Falcon Island development in Ras Al Khaimah.

The natural island in the Arabian Gulf which forms part of Al Hamra’s 77 million square feet Al Hamra Village development, will eventually comprise 150 eco-villas and waterfront mansions,

separated by a Venetian-style canal alongside private beaches and parks.

Under the terms of the contract China Harbour Engineering, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company, will dredge the central canal, which will split the

island in half, landscape beaches as well as complete power, sewerage and road networks on the island.

Work is due to begin in March 2015, with completion expected by October 2016.

Source: The National

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MAIN CONTRACT FOR $1 BILLION AL

MARYAH SHOPPING COMPLEX TO BE

AWARDED IN MAY


The main building contract for a US$1 billion shopping centre on Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi is set to be awarded in May, the property developer Gulf Related said yesterday.

Gulf Related, a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Capital and US-based retail developer Related Companies, said work on the 214,000 square metre mega-mall next to the

newly renamed Abu Dhabi Global Market Square would start in August.

In its latest edition, the business news publication Meed reported that Gulf Related has shortlisted Alec, an offshoot of Abu Dhabi’s Al Jaber Group, and Canada’s Brookfield Multiplex

to build the vast shopping complex.

It said that five bids had been submitted in January from contractors also including Al Futtaim

Carillion, Arabian Construction Company, Six Construct and Oger Abu Dhabi.

A Gulf Related spokesman declined to comment on the report.

“We are talking to a number of parties at the moment and we will be narrowing this down over

the course of the next six to eight weeks and appointing a main contractor in May,” he told The National yesterday.

The Gulf Related spokesman said that the Elkus Manfredi- designed mall is scheduled to open early in 2018.

The mall will include the US department stores Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s as well as 300 fashion retailers, 80 cafes and restaurants, and a cinema.

The complex will also include two 40-storey towers located at opposite ends of the mall, the

first of which is likely to include apartments and serviced apartments, and a second comprising a 200-330 room hotel. Neither tower will be included in the main contract.

Gulf Related added that the German contractor Bauer was working on site excavations at the project after commencing work in January. Gulf Related hopes to award a second contract for piling work in May.


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CHINESE TOURISTS TO STREAM INTO

DUBAI OVER THE NEXT DECADE


Chinese visitors to Dubai are expected to double in a decade.

Rising income levels in the world’s most populous nation and improved flight connections through the UAE will drive tourism growth from the country, says a report from Oxford

Economics and InterContinental Hotels Group.

Chinese visitor numbers to the emirate are predicted to surge 98 per cent in the 10 years

through 2023 to 545,000, according to the report.

They are expected to spend US$781 million in 2023, up from $488m in 2013.

However, the average length of stay for Chinese guests will remain steady at 3.3 nights

despite the spike in arrivals.

“They will definitely be a key customer for Dubai because of the growing numbers and average

spend,” said Pascal Gauvin, the chief operating officer for India, Middle East and Africa at IHG.

To tap the growing numbers, the hotels operator IHG has certified seven of its 12 properties in Dubai, such as InterContinental Festival City and Crowne Plaza Festival City, as China Ready, a

programme it started last year.

To become certified, a property must employ Mandarin-speaking staff as greeters, at the front

office or as concierges, trained Chinese chefs, cultural awareness training and access to the country’s UnionPay bank card network. It also needs to have Mandarin newspapers and TV channels in rooms, feature noodle soup on the menu and have slippers in rooms, Mr Gauvin

said.

IHG expects to certify its properties in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia’s holy cities when visitor

numbers reach a critical mass. “The numbers [in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia] are small for the moment,” Mr Gauvin said.

In 2023, Abu Dhabi is expected to receive 177,000 Chinese tourists, up by 300 per cent on

2013 numbers, said the report.

About 120,350 guests from China checked into Abu Dhabi hotels last year, staying on average

for 1.67 nights, according to Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority’s (TCA Abu Dhabi).

Dubai, followed by Abu Dhabi, is expected to record the fastest regional growth in Chinese tourists.

Travel to Mecca and Medina is expected to grow by half through 2023, as China’s Muslim population is predicted to rise to 2.1 per cent of the country’s total by 2030, according to the

report.





The rise of the Chinese tourist in the UAE comes as the industry copes with a sharp downturn in the number of arrivals from sanctions-hit Russia while the weak euro also threatens visitors

from the euro zone.

“China will emerge as a significant market for Dubai with a growing middle class, as Dubai will

remain more expensive to visit for European and Russian tourists,” said Matthew Green, the head of research and consultancy for the UAE at CBRE Middle East.

About 344,329 Chinese tourists checked into Dubai’s hotels and hotel apartments last year, an

increase of almost 25 per cent over 2013, according to Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. It was the seventh-largest market, with the top three Saudi Arabia,

India and the United Kingdom.

“While along with all Dubai’s hotels we saw a reduction in guests from Russia, we opened representative offices in both China and India and for the first time saw significant numbers

staying with us from these key markets in 2014,” said David Thomson, the chief operating officer at Dubai-based JA Resorts.

Globally, however, Asian and North American destinations remain far more popular for the Chinese tourists than the Middle East, according to the IHG and Oxford Economics report.

The five most popular cities with Chinese travellers are Seoul, Bangkok, Pattaya in Thailand,

Taoyuan in Taiwan and Kuala Lumpur. British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec in Canada, along with Fukuoka in Japan, Quebec and Medina, topped the list in terms of average length of stay.


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DUBAI’S DNATA TAKES MAJORITY

STAKE IN IMAGINE CRUISING


Emirates Group-owned dnata has agreed to buy a majority stake in Imagine Cruising.

Based in the UK with offices in South Africa, Imagine Cruising operates and sells cruises throughout the world.

Dubai’s dnata has shown an increasing interest in UK tour operators. In February last year, Thomas Cook sold Gold Medal, a UK-based distributor of long-haul scheduled flights, hotels

and car hire, to dnata for £45 million (Dh249.6m) to cut its losses.

The deal included the online travel agent netflights.com and Pure Luxury. The Dubai group also added Stella Travel Services, including the TravelBag, Travel2, Sunmaster, Global Travel Group

and Triton Rooms brands in September last year.

“Imagine Cruising is a key distributor of cruise products around the world. The addition of the

company to the dnata portfolio adds expertise in the growing cruise sector, strengthening our position as an international leader in travel services,” said Iain Andrew, divisional senior vice president of dnata’s travel business.

The cruise industry is benefitting from a revival both globally and locally. Abu Dhabi Ports is expecting an increase of 25 per cent in cruise liners calling at Zayed Port, lifting the number of

cruise tourists by half this season to about 185,000. In 2014, Dubai received 358,000 passengers from 94 cruise ship calls, and the forecast for 2015 stands at 425,000 cruise tourists from 115 ship calls.

The Hamdan bin Mohammed Cruise Terminal in Dubai, opened last December, will soon host five of the world’s biggest cruise operators with a capability of welcoming 14,000 cruise

passengers per day.

“Imagine Cruising brings a deep understanding of a key travel market, one which will enhance the product offering of each company within the dnata family,” said Mr Andrew. “Imagine will

lead the strategic development of cruise across dnata travel brands offering customers of Travel Republic, Gold Medal Travel Group and Stella Travel Services an enhanced choice of

unique cruise holidays.”


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BUSINESSES HIT AS EMIRATES,

ETIHAD AND FLYDUBAI SUSPEND

FLIGHTS TO ERBIL


Hotels in Iraqi Kurdistan face a fresh blow with the latest disruption to travel into the region.

Emirates, Etihad and flydubai this week stopped flights to Erbil.

The Abu Dhabi-based Cristal Hotels and Resorts reported a drying up of regular business travellers. Those from Lebanon, Turkey and the UAE were regular fixtures at the hotels in Erbil

as investment flowed. The region’s tourism sector alone was expected to receive about US$3.68 billion in foreign investment this year, up by 15 per cent on last year, said Mawlawi Jabar Wahab, the head of the general board of tourism for the Kurdish region, last year.

It expects to receive 5 million tourists this year, up from 3 million in 2013.

Last year’s tourist data are yet to be released, but the Erbil airport reported a slowdown in the

number of international passengers because of the security situation, among other reasons.

The ongoing turmoil could prompt a review of tourism targets.

“All that is under suspension,” said Kamal Fakhoury, the vice president and chief operating

officer of Cristal Hotels and Resorts, who was in the city last month.

“The situation is a little dire with fighting going on 60 kilometres from the border of Kurdistan,

and there is a general sense of fear.”

The company’s 95-room luxury property, however, has new clients in the form of military and

the press, and the property expects to occupancy rates near 90 per cent for the next four months, he said.

Last month, it had an occupancy rate of about 40 per cent.

“Despite the gloom, though, there is a huge potential in that area with its huge oil and gas reserves, great strategic location, and good vision from the Kurdistan government to build the

economy,” Mr Fakhoury said.

The company is going ahead with its projects for three more properties. The 160-room luxury Cristal Grand Erbil, a 112-room, four-star Sanctuary Hotel and a 90-room, midscale rebranded

Emerald hotel are expected in the next two years.

Hilton has delayed the opening of its first two hotels in Iraq – the Double Tree Suites by Hilton

Erbil and Hilton Erbil Hotel and Spa – to 2017. A 223-room DoubleTree by Hilton Sulaymaniyah is also expected to open then.





Abu Dhabi-based Rotana expects to manage its second hotel Erbil Arjaan by Rotana next year. It has another five-star property in the pipeline. It opened Erbil Rotana in 2011, which then

employed 350 people.

The oil and gas sectors are operating as usual for now, according to some companies.

“There is no effect on our operations,” said Andrew Benbow, a spokesman for Genel Energy, with stakes in the Tak Tak and Tawke oilfields in the Kurdish region.

The three UAE airlines all suspended flights last week to Erbil until further notice. Etihad and

Emirates had operated four flights a week each to Erbil.

Emirates has also suspended flights to Baghdad, which has six weekly flights, but is flying to

Basra.

Flydubai has suspended its daily flights to Erbil and three weekly flights to Sulaymaniyah.


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TRUMP MANSIONS LAUNCHED IN

DUBAI - COMPLETE WITH

PERSONALISED GOLF CART


Starting at Dh6.5 million, the Dubai property developer Damac has started marketing what it claims will be the poshest villas in its Akoya golf development.

Today, Damac said it was bringing to the market Trump PRVT Mansions – a small estate of villas within a private, gated island community located on its 42 million square feet Akoya

scheme off Umm Sequim Road in Dubailand.

Damac did not say how many villas would be included in the estate.

Damac, which has in the past become known for tempting new buyers with free gifts such as

sports cars and motor scooters, said that owners will be offered a personalised golf cart.

It said that villas would all come with a private pool and deck, balconies, gardens and floor to

ceiling windows.

“Trump PRVT will be the most distinguished address in Dubai,” said Niall McLoughlin, senior vice president, Damac Properties. “Only a very select few can enter into this lifestyle, with

indulgent surroundings overlooking the Trump International Championship-standard golf course.”

The developer last month announced that it would be creating the region’s first rainforest as part of its Akoya Oxygen community.


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ABU DHABI LUXURY HOUSING RISES

FIFTH-FASTEST IN THE WORLD


Prime house prices in Abu Dhabi rose by the fifth-fastest rate in the world last year, according to a new report.

According to Knight Frank’s Global Wealth report, luxury house prices in the capital rose 14.7

per cent last year on average, placing them just behind those of New York, Aspen, Bali and Istanbul in a world survey.

The placing was a slight improvement on 2013, when the same survey ranked Abu Dhabi the eighth-fastest rising housing market in the world with a 15 per cent increase in prices.

However, the story in Dubai was very different. The city’s ranking in Knight Frank’s global

prime house price ranking fell from seventh-highest in the world in 2013 to 60th last year.

According to the study, house price growth in Dubai slowed to just 0.3 per cent last year from

17 per cent in 2013 as new rules capping the amount of money buyers were allowed to borrow came into force.

“Last year was a tumultuous one for the Arabian Gulf region,” said Joseph Morris, Knight

Frank’s head of capital markets for the Middle East. “After an extremely positive start to the year, continued political and economic instability in the Middle East, as well as sharp falls in oil

prices, hit confidence hard across local capital markets.”

By contrast, JLL data found that average apartment prices in investment areas, which also includes prime property, in the capital, rose 18 per cent last year, while villa prices rose by 25

per cent. The property broker reported that in Dubai, investment area apartment prices increased by 23 per cent, while villa prices rose 12 per cent.

According to the Knight Frank index of prime house prices in 100 global cities, the value of luxury residential property around the world rose on average by just over 2 per cent last year, down from almost 3 per cent in 2013, brought down by flat or negative growth in 40 locations.

“Despite the more muted performance of the index this year, luxury housing markets continue to outperform their mainstream counterparts,” said Kate Everett-Allen, the head of

international residential research at Knight Frank.

“The average price of a luxury home is 38 per cent higher than it was at the index’s lowest point in the second quarter of 2009. The average price of mainstream global property has risen

by just 14 per cent over the same period,” she said.

Knight Frank reported that about 48,300 wealthy people – those with a net worth of more than

US$1 million – were living in the UAE in 2013.

It said that over the 10 years between 2003 and 2013, about 10,100 of them had moved to

the UAE, placing the UAE at seventh in a global ranking.





The UK was the top destination for wealthy people in 2013, the report found, followed by Singapore, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Canada.


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ORASCOM RISES 2.8% IN FIRST DAY

OF TRADE AT NASDAQ DUBAI


Orascom Construction, the contractor spun out of the Egyptian conglomerate, turned in a respectable first day’s trade on the Nasdaq Dubai stock exchange, with a 2.8 per cent rise to US$14.69.

Listing on Nasdaq Dubai marks the split of the construction and engineering businesses away from Orascom’s chemicals and fertilizer operations, which will remain listed in the Netherlands.

The demerger process will be completed when OC lists on the Cairo stock exchange in a few days.

“We are excited to be in Dubai,” said Osama Bishai, the chief executive. “The listing here will

provide our institutional investors with a base that is denominated in dollars. We believe investors in the Middle East have a better understanding of construction.”

Mr Bishai added that Orsacom investors had tended to be long-term holders since it was first listed 15 years ago. But he said that he expected some Dutch investors to exit the stock once the shares were listed in Dubai and Cairo.

The value of shares traded in Dubai was about $7.8 million. Yesterday’s session high reached $14.75.

OC will begin trading in Cairo in the next couple of days. No new money has been raised in the Nasdaq listing, but new shares equivalent to 11 per cent of total market capital will be issued in Cairo.

The beginning of trading was marked by a bell-ringing ceremony by Mr Bishai; Essa Kazim, the governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre; and Hamed Ali, the chief executive of

Nasdaq Dubai.

It is the Dubai market’s first deal under a strategy of cooperation that was signed last year with the Egyptian stock market authorities to enable common listings.


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CONSTRUCTION WORKERS RETURNING

TO INDIA AS UAE LIVING COSTS SOAR

AND WAGES RISE BACK HOME’


Just thinking about his rent makes Karunakaran Gopalan want to leave his job as a mechanical engineer in Abu Dhabi and return to his newly built house in Kerala.

“I want to finish paying off my loans and then run away,” says Mr Gopalan, who works for Al Ryum General Contracting. “Accommodation and school costs are killer blows.”

For decades the UAE’s Dh175 billion construction industry has relied on expatriate Indian workers and professionals such as Mr Gopalan to build the skyscrapers, shopping malls and hotels that dominate the skylines of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

But now a building boom at home driven by the economic reforms of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, is encouraging many would-be Indian emigrants to stay in India – forcing

employers throughout the UAE to look farther afield to fill positions.

A second interest rate cut in India last week was the latest boost for the expanding construction sector, which the IMF expects to help propel GDP growth of 6.5 per cent next

year.

“We haven’t hired any new Indian labourers. It’s difficult because the salary of labourers in

India is more than before,” said Mahmoud Irshaid, a project manager at Abu Dhabi-based Al Mezin General Contracting.

Monthly salaries for Indian labourers have jumped to Dh1,600 from Dh1,200 two years ago on many sites in the capital.

“Lots of our Indian employees have resigned and moved back to India,” Mr Irshaid said. “The

ones who stayed asked for increased salaries.”

Contractors such as Al Mezin and Al Ryum have switched to cheaper sources of labour.

“We aren’t hiring any new labourers from India – instead we’re hiring labourers from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal, and some from the Philippines,” Mr Irshaid says.

“Ask anyone in the UAE,” he says. “They’ll say the same thing.”

Pakistani workers are paid about Dh1,000 per month, while some Nepalese labourers will work for Dh800 per month, Mr Irshaid says.

It is not just the construction economy that is being affected.





“There’s more work in India for all jobs these days. More Indians in the UAE have professional jobs than a few years ago,” says Abdul Nasser Ammunny, a manager at Raneh and Taneh

Mobile Phone in Abu Dhabi.

He has lived in the UAE for 12 years but visits his family in India every year.

“There aren’t as many Indian construction workers in the UAE as there were three years ago. More are coming from Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries,” he says.

Housing costs have risen rapidly in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as the country’s housing stock

struggles to keep up with the influx of migrant labour. Higher rents and utilities have pushed inflation to above 4 per cent in both emirates. A particular shortage of cheap or mid-range

housing options means that shortages and price rises are particularly acute for those on lower incomes.

Returning workers cite the increasing cost of living across the Arabian Gulf and harsh

recruitment company practices as key reasons for their decision to return home, says Debajan Chakrabati, the general secretary of the Construction Workers Federation of India, a trade

union based in Kolkata.

Exploitation by “unscrupulous recruiting agents” is a common complaint, he says, with many workers reporting having passports seized on arrival and receiving lower salaries than

promised.

But the boom in infrastructure spending means that the standard of living for construction

workers at home is improving.

“Metro lines are being opened and there is a lot of new spending on infrastructure,” says

Naweed Khan, who is also a mechanical engineer at Al Ryum.

“Drastic changes in the power industry” and the new government’s taste for public-private partnerships have further lifted the construction industry at home, he said.

Not everyone believes that Mr Modi deserves all the credit for India’s new-found economic optimism.

Wages are not rising “because of Modi – wages were rising before Modi,” says Mr Ammunny. Wages are increasing “because there are more educated people and more professional jobs in India”, he says.

Family is a strong pull keeping labourers at home. It takes a sizeable wage differential to persuade construction workers to leave their families – and now that it is falling, fewer are

willing, adds Mr Irshaid.

Mr Khan, however, still has no immediate plans to return to India. He says he will wait for the gap between wages here and in India to narrow more before returning, and is confident that

this will happen eventually.

As an engineer with a degree from Gulbarga University in Karnataka, Mr Khan earns Dh13,000

per month working in Abu Dhabi. He would earn about Dh10,000 were he to return to India, but his income would be taxed.

Still, rising rents may make him contemplate a return sooner.

“I spend 35 per cent of my salary on rent. If accommodation costs go up, it would be the same, working in India versus working here.”





But Mr Gopalan, his co-worker, is itching to leave. Once he pays off the loans needed to build his Kerala home he will be heading for the airport.

Then he will never have to pay rent again, he says with a smile.

Additional reporting by Rebecca Bundhun in Mumbai and Lucy Barnard in Abu Dhabi.


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THE TORCH BLAZE REIGNITES

CONCERNS OVER CLADDING USED FOR

DUBAI TOWERS


Once the world’s tallest residential building, The Torch, lived up to its name and again made headlines around the world last month when a huge fire set the 1,105 foot tall building ablaze.

Despite dramatic videos of the inferno being beamed across the internet, fortunately no-one was harmed in the incident and Kingfield Owner Association Management Services, the

building’s management company, last week reported that the structure of the tower had not been affected by the fire while “most of the damage was limited to the exterior cladding”.

But as Dubai Civil Defence begins the painstaking work of investigating what caused the blaze,

cleaners remove the debris and many residents return to their homes, the dramatic fire footage has once again ignited long-standing concerns about the sort of cladding used in Dubai

towers.

It is far too early to speculate on what caused the Torch fire last month.

However, parallels are being drawn with the 34-storey Tamweel Tower fire in Tecom in 2012,

where a stray cigarette butt was found to have caused aluminium cladding panels to burn downwards, leaving tenants homeless.

Flammable cladding materials, comprising plastic or polyurethane fillings – called a thermo-plastic core – sandwiched between aluminium panels, have been blamed for spreading fires at

both the Al Baker Tower 4 and the Al Tayer Tower in Sharjah in 2012.

Experts believe the majority of Dubai’s approximately 250 high-rise buildings use cladding panels with a thermo-plastic core, which have been generally used for insulation, to improve

rigidity and for cosmetic purposes .

The 2012 blazes prompted the Ministry of Interior to introduce an extension to the emirate’s

Fire and Life safety code requiring cladding for new buildings to adhere to tough new fire safety regulations and outlawing the use of foamed plastic insulation.

And in 2013 Civil Defence chiefs announced an extension to existing fire safety codes requiring

owners of high-rise buildings with flammable cladding to install a ring of fire retardant panels every three floors, to stop fires spreading, and external sprinklers. The managers of the 86-

storey Torch, which comprises 676 apartments and six shops, are quick to point out that the building adhered to all Dubai fire safety requirements when it was completed in May 2011.

“The Torch Tower was built strictly to code and all approvals from relevant authorities were

obtained prior to the completion certificate being issued by the authorities,” says Kingfield Owner Association Management Services.





But for buildings’ insurers, who have to bear the costs of expensive claims in the event of a fire, the use of aluminium composite panels in towers is of growing concern – and that makes

the properties harder to insure.

“What we look at in a building is whether these panels are extensively used or if they are used

up to a reasonable amount,” says A K Ravindran, the technical director at RSA Insurance.

“So if a building has less than 50 per cent of its cladding made up of these panels we don’t

consider it a great risk to underwrite,” he says. “We do categorisation for up to 10 per cent, 10 to 20 per cent, 20 per cent to 50 per cent and above 50 per cent.

“It enables us to evaluate our exposure in these segments. Generally what we notice is that

more than 50 per cent is not a manageable risk to underwrite.”

Mr Ravindran estimates that at least 30 per cent of the buildings RSA insures in Dubai contain

aluminium panels “in some form or other” – especially those in areas such as JLT and Dubai Marina.

He says that for those with the highest proportion of panels, insurance options are limited.

“We don’t insure many buildings with more than 50 per cent foam panels,” he says.

“Most of the insurance companies look into the fire exposure quite keenly. This is an issue

which is faced by all the insurance companies.

“There will definitely be a few buildings which will be completely uninsurable. Owners of these buildings will have to improve the quality of their buildings.”

Oman Insurance Company, the main insurer of the Torch Tower, declines to comment on its policy for insuring buildings clad in aluminium composite panels.

“As one of the leading insurers in the region, in the business for nearly 40 years, we have reinsurance support,” a spokeswoman says.

Meanwhile, for buildings that include non-regulated foam panel cladding, property experts are advising caution.

“Each building is built differently,” says Christopher Seymour, the head of property at the

building consultancy EC Harris. “There have been fires in Dubai where it was suggested that the fire spread was to have been around the specification of the foam core in the sandwich

cladding panels. The regulations which came into force into in 2012 updated that specification.

“The normal thing to do for buildings completed before the new codes came in would be to have a technical assessment on the building to assess these risks,” Mr Seymour adds.

“We certainly wouldn’t be saying that every building which has that sort of cladding is a fire risk.”

Mr Ravindran agrees. “At the end of the day for us it’s all about risk management,” he says.

“Glass cladding also is not a perfect solution as there is also a risk that fire can spread from one floor to another,” he points out.

“We look closely at how well the building’s management controls activities such as smoking and maintains the building.”

In the meantime, Torch residents will be grateful the building’s evacuation procedures were effective and the Dubai emergency services’ expertise helped to prevent further distress.






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UNION PROPERTIES BUCKS THE TREND

WITH FIRST CASH DIVIDEND IN 13

YEARS

TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2015

Union Properties became the first listed UAE developer this year to offer dividend cheer to investors.

The developer behind Dubai’s Motor City reported yesterday that it was proposing to pay a 3 per cent cash dividend and 5 per cent bonus shares for 2014, its first cash dividend for 13

years.

UPP opted to pay the dividends despite full-year profits for 2014 dropping 45 per cent to Dh864 million from Dh1.57 billion a year earlier.

Shares in UPP rose 5.88 per cent, closing at Dh1.08 as investors cheered the dividend news.

The announcement comes during what has been a disappointing reporting season so far for

real estate shareholders looking for payouts.

Last week Emaar Properties disappointed the market by offering a cash dividend of 15 per cent – the same amount it paid the previous year.

And on Monday Deyaar said it had opted not to pay a dividend for 2014.

But despite the decision, analysts were not impressed with UPP’s strategy.

“Union Properties shareholders tend to be retail investors who look closely at dividends but not at the financial results or the strategy behind them,” said Sebastien Henin, the head of asset

management at The National Investor.

“When you look at Emaar’s dividend decision you can take a view that the company has opted to retain cash because there is less visibility in the market at the moment than there was a few

months ago,” he said.

“However, with UPP’s decision there is little information about why the company has chosen to

pay out.”

Like many Dubai developers Union Properties was hit hard by the global financial crisis. The developer has spent the past seven years tackling a massive debt burden, forcing the company

to sell many of its key assets including the Ritz-Carlton hotel and substantial stakes in Limestone House and Index Tower to major shareholder Emirates NBD.

At the Cityscape property exhibition in September, UPP unveiled three new projects worth a total of Dh2.15bn including a five-tower complex in MotorCity as well as phases two and three of the Green Community at MotorCity and phase three of the Green Community at Dubai

Investment Park.





Analysts have repeatedly pointed to the fact that UPP profits in recent years have been boosted by sales of the company’s assets rather than individual sales to investors, prompting

the Egypt-based Naeem Brokerage to downgrade the company from “accumulate” to “hold”, last year.

“The sale of income-generating assets boosts quarterly performance but is not positive for the long term,” said Harshjit Oza, an analyst at Naeem Brokerage in a market note last year.

Last month UPP announced it was selling its auto mall development in Motor City for Dh525

million to Texture Global Investment.


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AMLAK FINANCE AIMS FOR RETURN TO

DFM TRADING AFTER SIX YEARS

WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2015

Amlak Finance shares are set to start trading again next month after an absence of six years.

The Sharia-compliant mortgage lender, which is 45 per cent owned byEmaar Properties, announced yesterday that it was aiming to have its stock readmitted to the Dubai Financial

Market for restart of trading in April 2015.

Amlak, which yesterday reported a 22 per cent profit increase for last year, completed a

restructuring of US$2.7 billion worth of debt last August, paving the way for the company’s shares, suspended since 2008, to resume trading.

The deal with 28 creditors broke the impasse that had hung over the UAE mortgage market

since the height of the global financial crisis.

Amlak was an immediate casualty of the credit crunch in 2008 when it was unable to tap global

credit markets to service its mortgage business. Protracted negotiations to merge Amlak with its rival mortgage lender Tamweel were finally aborted when the latter was taken over by Dubai Islamic Bank.

Reporting its financial accounts for the the first since 2008, Amlak said that profits for 2014 stood at Dh58.85 million, up from Dh48.23m the previous year, mostly driven by the loan

restructuring.

By comparison the company, which has spent the past eight years slashing staff numbers and expenses but underwriting no new loans, reported net profits of Dh240m in 2008.

Total Assets fell to Dh7.3bn last year from almost Dh16bn in 2008.

The reduction included Dh6bn from amortization of the mortgage portfolio and almost Dh2.3bn

from impairments losses recorded in 2014 on real estate and other corporate assets. With no new business to sustain it since 2008, revenues at the company also continued to decline.

Income from Islamic financing and investing assets fell 9.4 per cent to Dh368m last year from

Dh406m a year earlier and fee income sank 69 per cent to Dh8.4m in 2014 from Dh27.8m in 2013. Amlak said that total revenues stood at just two-thirds of their 2008 level, while total

operating expenses fell 45 per cent between 2008 and 2014 as the company implemented an austerity strategy for remaining staff.

“With the completion of the restructuring in November 2014, Amlak is now well placed to

resume normal business operations and work towards creating future value for our shareholders once again,” said the Amlak vice chairman Ali Ibrahim Mohammed.

To win regulatory approval from the Securities and Commodities Authority to resume trading, Amlak must fulfil certain requirements including ratification by shareholders.






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DUBAI PALACE PRICED AT DH110

MILLION AWAITS A VVIP


This is the biggest house that has come on the market to date in the UAE. So says Knight Frank, the real estate agent marketing the property. There certainly aren’t many occasions you have the chance to buy a palace – after all, they don’t come on the market that often.

But this 10-bedroom, 13-bathroom villa on sale in Dubai’s Emirates Hills is palatial in every aspect, including the price. It is on the market for Dh110 million.

The property, which looks out on to the Montgomerie Golf Course, sits on a 40,804 square foot plot and has a built-up area of 41,703 sq ft designed and positioned to give the ultimate privacy to residents who probably don’t want others knowing what they get up to in their spare

time.

From its imposing dual staircases and fountain in the reception to its wonderful master

bedroom – complete with sumptuous en suite bathroom, walk-in changing rooms and sitting room all behind the bedroom door – leaves you in no doubt you are in a residence of unique appointment. There is undoubtedly an Arabian theme at play in this home – marble floors

feature throughout and the gold hue runs from front to back and top to bottom. Chandeliers are a prerequisite, along with sweeping arches and ornate, mosaic-tiled ceilings. A grand

central majilis, for instance, plays host to an extravagant hand-painted dome.

The property – completed only six months ago – has never been lived in. And painters and decorators are still working on site to perfect the decor.

The new build also has nine reception rooms, a lift, a balcony overlooking the golf course, a roof terrace, a garden terrace, staff accommodation, private parking for up to 11 cars, 24-

hour security and an opulent swimming pool with Jacuzzi set in established manicured gardens.

The property sits in sector L of Emirates Hills, which has the biggest plot sizes in the estate.

Sector S may be slightly more exclusive as it only has eight plots but they are not the same league size-wise as this mansion.

Q&A

Gregory Lewis, senior negotiator with the estate agent Knight Frank, details the finer features of this palatial property to Andrew Scott:

How long has this property on the market?

Two weeks.

I’ve heard there about the slowdown in the UAE property scene. So how is the market for palaces these days?





This property will sell to a VVIP: someone, probably from the Gulf, with a very specific taste and undoubtedly with property elsewhere. The way it has been appointed and decorated

means it will not really be advertised globally.

Who do you think the lavish decor will appeal to?

Marble, gold and fountains, while being a part of many older houses, are not usually found in new builds elsewhere. This has been built for the Arabic market. While there has been a slowdown in the housing market here, that has not been felt by the super-prime sector and

they are still selling as before. I am not expecting a queue for this house though.

Will it be difficult to attain the selling price?

The price is what the owner hopes to attain. At this level all buyers like to negotiate; the first offer is always lower. It is the biggest ever property sold in Dubai in the best area. It is beautiful, with everything that a person of this means would expect. The fact that this is a

unique property with a particular design style means that there will not be an abundance of buyers, however, it is the perfect location, in the correct city in one of the areas of the world

with a huge disposable income. There is a buyer for this property at this price, but when that buyer decides to buy is up to them.


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HOTEL RATES IN DUBAI DROP FOR

SECOND MONTH IN A ROW


Hotel room prices in Dubai weakened for the second consecutive month as the landscape became more crowded.

During February, considered a busy season, the emirate’s average room rates fell 5.6 per cent

year-on-year to Dh983.48 per night, according to the research consultancy STR Global.

Occupancy rates dipped 1.9 per cent to 86.6 per cent. That pulled down a key measure of the

hotel profitability – revenue per available room – by 7.4 per cent to Dh852.

In January, revpar fell 6.4 per cent year-on-year to Dh916.77.

The dips were attributed to an increase in room supply that outstripped demand.

The “average daily rate will be soft in response to the growin

g supply” for the rest of the year, according to Elizabeth Winkle, the managing director of STR

Global.

Last month, New York-listed Hyatt Hotels opened the 464-room Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights. A sixth Hyatt in Dubai’s Baniyas Square is expected later this year.

The French operator Accor plans to open its Aparthotel Adagio in Al Barsha this month and ibis Styles hotel by Dragon Mart by August. It already operates 16 hotels in the emirate and

expects to have 3,000 rooms in the UAE before 2020 – about 2,000 of them in Dubai alone.

Many of Dubai’s high room rates are attributed to the concentration in the luxury segment.

“You can definitely see an element of that in the market, as figures from Dubai [Department of

Tourism and Commerce Marketing] show,” said Rick Zeolla, the consulting general manager at the five-star Habtoor Grand Beach Resort and Spa in Dubai Marina.

“Dubai needs to be attractive in the marketplace.” In January, for instance, when the average daily four- and five-star room rate in the emirate was US$384, according to TRI Consulting in Dubai, the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt offered similar rooms at $42.74.

“In Dubai the recent decline of Russian tourists could have been less impacted if Dubai could offer extensive mid-market accommodation, as the price of the whole holiday package would

be as competitive as the Red Sea coast of Egypt,” said Filippo Sona, the director of hotels for the Middle East and North Africa region at Colliers International, the property services company.

In January, Dubai International Airport recorded a drop of 22.7 per cent in travellers from Russia and CIS countries because of political and economic instability in the region.

To cope with the competition in the luxury segment, home-grown brands in Dubai are increasingly turning to international chains to tap the wider market.





The Habtoor Grand, which first opened in 2005, last month tied up with Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, a deal that will have a Marriott team managing the property and give

access to the chain’s global reservation system and its 48 million loyalty members.

The rebranding “gives us the widest reach to the global market, Marriott’s global sales system

and brand recognition”, said Sundaresh Iyer, the director of operations and development at Al Habtoor Group.

The property is the Middle East’s first Autograph Collection hotel, with the second coming up at

the Lapita as part of Meraas’s Dubai Parks and Resorts in Jebel Ali.

Dubai hotels are expected to perform better in the second half of the year, with an average 1.4

per cent increase in revenue per available room for the whole year. “Occupancy levels in excess of 80 per cent do not suggest a sharp fall in [room] rate” for the whole year, said Ms Winkle.


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ALL SHIPSHAPE UP ON DECK OF ABU

DHABI BOAT-TOUR OPERATOR


One small business owner tailored his start-up boating company to the needs of Abu Dhabi, not the glitz of Dubai.

“People immediately assume that boating is for the rich,” Tony Neto, 36, the owner and

managing partner of Captain Tony’s, says. “So my approach was very different than what you see in Dubai.”

Mr Neto’s vision was to have simple boats that the average consumer could afford. “Don’t expect luxury on the boat, the luxury is the scenery and really good service,” the captain says.

The idea began brewing in 2010, a couple of years after Mr Neto and his family moved to the

UAE from Portugal. He was an architect by trade, heading an Australian firm based in Abu Dhabi. One of the first big purchases the family made was a boat, costing Dh50,000, which

was later used to start Captain Tony’s.

For SMEs who want to place an ad free of charge visit:www.thenational.ae/small-business-ads

“I used to dock the boat where the fishermen docked because I didn’t want to pay the fees,”

says Mr Neto. This led to him exploring different areas in Abu Dhabi than the most popular destinations. “When people turn right, I tend to turn left and what I found was amazing,” he

says.

When friends joined his family on these weekend cruises, everyone was amazed at the turtles, white sand beaches and the peacefulness of these under-explored areas. “Eventually I began

exploring this idea on a commercial, but small-scale level,” he says.

He was still working as an architect, but in his free time he began to draft a business plan. And

three years ago, Captain Tony’s went from idea to reality. He took his family boat and bought a new engine for Dh70,000 – which was more expensive than the boat.

Mr Neto set out to meet up with several hotels in the Yas area, inviting concierges to come

along for a tour to see the service.

On UAE National Day 2012, Captain Tony’s welcomed its first customers: a young couple from

Dubai looking to charter a romantic cruise for Dh2,000. Mr Neto says that with all of the time spent marketing the company, landing the first booking seemed surreal. “You’ve been planning for so long and then it happens and suddenly, you don’t know what to do,” he recalls.

He immediately bought flowers and chocolates to set the stage, pretending as though he had done this a million times. “I’ve dealt with large projects before, but this was so important to

me that it couldn’t go wrong,” Mr Neto says. The satisfaction after getting the first customers was incredible. “I thought: ‘The first one is behind me and it can only get better from here,’”

he says.





Yet the business didn’t immediately take off. Mr Neto says it was a gradual increase. There were no bookings during the week at first. This increased slowly to two trips during the week

as well as two to three weekend bookings.

And then last year happened.

“Suddenly we were fully booked during the week and weekend,” Mr Neto says. He bought another boat, and ended up expanding his workforce from one employee to 11.

“The hotels were sending us people, others were finding us online and everything just started

to add up,” he says. And the company’s list of services also began expanding.

His staff includes an older woman from Brazil, which has helped expand the business to cater

to ladies-only tours. Mr Neto also began working with the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority to offer an abra service.

Abras ferry passengers around select areas similar to a hop-on, hop-off shuttle service via the

water. The free service is currently catering to the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, Ritz-Carlton Grand Canal, the Shangri-La and Souk Qaryat Al Beri. Abras will also make their way to Al Maryah

Island connecting the Galleria in Sowwah Square to the Abu Dhabi Mall.

Another idea for the company came about when Mr Neto and his family were staying at a nearby hotel. He stumbled upon a marine biologist who had been teaching his children about

different shells found on the beach. He approached the hotel’s general manager and so began Captain Tony’s Eco-Tours, which has become very popular for local school trips.

Mr Neto wants to maintain the small-town feel with his company. He dismissed the idea of an online portal for bookings. “Part of the charm of Captain Tony’s is personal contact, and we

want to keep in touch with our guest,” he says.

The boat owner also supports other local small businesses. When he began looking for a catering company for bookings, he decided against a commercial chain and went with Cafe

Firenze – a locally-owned restaurant that makes about 50 sandwiches a week just for Captain Tony’s.

“When you believe you’ve got something good, you do it honestly and offer a really good service, people always come back,” Mr Neto says.


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ALL-INCLUSIVE DEALS HIT TOURIST

SPENDING OUTSIDE SHARM EL SHEIKH

HOTELS


Yusuf Ali can see the charter planes take off and land from his souvenir shop near Sharm El Sheikh Airport.

It is crammed with miniature mummies, luminous sphinxes and other Pharaonic curiosities. But there are no customers.

Those that do stray into his shop are typically wearing wristbands – the telltale sign of a holidaymaker on an all-inclusive deal.

Such packages are slowly draining the lifeblood from Red Sea tourism, squeezing profit

margins to a pittance and encouraging tourists to consume everything at their hotels even as overseas visitors make a return.

“Everything is included so they only have some pocket money for shopping and excursions,” he says as another planeload of tourists just landed from Moscow spill out of a bus and into the lobby of an adjoining hotel.

The collapse of the Russian rouble, the slowdown in the euro zone and continuing attacks in the Sinai peninsula have all taken their toll on the hotels, restaurants and tour operators of the

region. To attract wary tourists, hotels have been forced to offer all-inclusive deals at rock-bottom prices. So even as tourists start to slowly return, hotels are not reaping the rewards.

“The biggest problem with the Red Sea coast is the all-inclusive nature of bookings where in some cases you have dinner, bed and breakfast. Some operators include flights as well,” said Peter Goddard, the managing director of the hotel consultancy TRI. “So if you peel it all back,

you will find the hotels are actually netting a ridiculously low amount.”

A recent poll of hotels by the consultancy revealed that less than 5 per cent of Sharm El Sheikh

hotels were not offering all-inclusive packages.

The revival of the country’s battered tourism sector is key to attracting the foreign exchange needed to wean Egypt’s economy off external financial aid from the Arabian Gulf.

That is why the hotels and restaurants around the Sharm El Sheikh convention centre where the Egypt the Future conference got under way this weekend, have much riding on its success.

Thousands of delegates from around the world have flooded into the resort – providing a boost to the local tourism economy.





But its organisers had to draft in drivers from Cairo to shuttle attendees from their hotels to the convention centre where Egypt’s economic course is being plotted. There were not enough

local drivers to go around, reflecting the contraction of the sector.

Ten years ago Sharm El Sheikh witnessed the deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history

when 88 people were killed in a string of bomb blasts around the town. More recently the Sinai insurgency has frustrated early signs of a recovery on the Red Sea coast.

Once the premier winter sun destination of the region, half of its hotel rooms are empty in

what should be peak season. Sharm El Sheikh had average room rates of US$45 in December, compared with $375 in Dubai.

Those hotels that are busy are forced to offer all-inclusive deals leaving little scope to boost margins through the sale of meals and drinks. That represents a key difference between the hotel model in cities such as Dubai where operators make money from food and beverage

sales.

The decline of the rouble has been a particularly brutal blow for the hotels on the coastal road

leading to the centre of Sharm El Sheikh. While the loss of Russian tourists is felt around the region, nowhere else are they such an important source market.

“The main risk I see for the tourism industry is not political risk. It’s what is happening in

Russia,” says Jean-Paul Pigat, an economist at Emirates NBD. “It will also have some impact on Dubai but in my mind those Russians who go to Egypt on all- inclusive packages may be a

little more sensitive to price changes and fluctuations in the currency.”

As shuttle buses unload tourists at the shops of the Nama Bay district, shop owners call out

first in Russian and then in English.

Despite the country’s economic woes and weakened currency, Russian tourists are still everywhere to be seen, but they are not spending as much says Mr Ali.

“It is not like before,” he says unfolding a depiction of what he says is the world’s oldest calendar and pointing to the interlocking hands of the ancient Egyptians that represent each

month.

It is a well-practised routine, even if these days there are fewer tourists to practice on.


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UAE TO BUILD EGYPT’S ‘NEW CAIRO’


The UAE will be the driving force behind the construction of a new administrative capital for Egypt.

A key part of the project is to be named in honour of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

The Dh72 billion city will occupy 700 square kilometres of land to the east of Cairo, about 12 times the size of Manhattan, and will accommodate seven million people and create 1.5 million jobs.

The land deal was signed at the Egypt the Future economic conference yesterday by Mohammed Alabbar, chairman of the Dubai developer Emaarand head of the Capital City

Partners fund that will build the city, and Mustafa Madbuli, Egypt’s minister of housing.

The ceremony was witnessed by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the Prime Minister and Vice

President and Ruler of Dubai, and Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

Sheikh Mohammed later returned to Dubai, after delivering a speech on Friday described by one delegate as “the best received of the conference”.

In other developments at the gathering yesterday, the Abu Dhabi renewable energy company Masdar and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power signed a deal with Egypt worth billions of dollars to

develop renewable energy and natural gas power projects.


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With 30 years of Middle East experience, Asteco’s Valuation & Advisory Services

team brings together a group of the Gulf’s leading real estate experts.

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and investment teams transacting in the market and a wealth of research that supports our decision making.

John Allen BSc MRICS

Director, Valuation & Advisory

+971 4 403 7777

[email protected]

Julia Knibbs MSc

Manager – Research and Consultancy - UAE

+971 4 403 7789

[email protected]

VALUATION & ADVISORY

Our professional advisory services are conducted

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