Dubai Cityscape fair begins amid regional real estate boom

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Dubai Cityscape fair begins amid regional real estate boom

(Xinhua) 21:04, October 08, 2013

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Four years after the real estate crash pushed Dubai to the brink of bankruptcy, developers here celebrate a return of new investor confidence and new mega- projects as it can be seen at a three-day property fair Cityscape which began on Tuesday.

Sheikh Maktoum Bin Mohammed, the deputy ruler of Dubai opened the Cityscape fair and exhibition which for the first time since 2009 covers over six halls of the congress center in the Dubai world trade center.

According to Cityscape exhibition director Wouter Molman, the number of participating firms increased in the last two years for the second time in a row by 50 percent as over 200 exhibitors occupy some 25,000 square meters.

According to real estate research firm CBRE, the average rental price increased in the third quarter by 3.5 percent, the same pace as in the second quarter.

"Business confidence returned as the most recent consensus forecast puts Dubai's gross domestic product growth at 3.5 percent for 2013," said Mathew Green, the head of research at CBRE, adding that apartment prices rose the most in Dubai as the sales price increases of 28 percent year on year.

With the world economy recovering, Dubai has successfully managed to attract trade, tourism and banking to the Gulf, playing its geographical card as an open and politically stable trade hub linking the Far East with the West and Africa.

Dubai's state-owned developer Nakheel, one of the biggest real estate firms in the Gulf region, showcases at the ongoing Cityscape its planned extension of the old town of Deira on reclaimed land in Gulf waters as well as the Nakheel mall, a shopping mall on the man-made island The Palm Jumeirah, which will be located just opposite the famous Atlantis hotel.

In late 2009, Nakheel hit global news when Dubai's oil-rich neighbor emirate Abu Dhabi bailed out Nakheel after it ran out of cash to pay off a 4.1 billion dollars Islamic bond.

After several debt restructuring and due to an economic recovery, Nakheel returned to profits in 2010 and since then the series of positive returns sustained.

Earlier in the week on Monday, Nakheel said it earned in the first nine months of this year a net profit of 1.77 billion Dirham, or 482.68 million dollars, representing a year-on-year increase of 58 percent.

Other developers also bet high that the real estate boom in the emirate will continue. Khalaf Al Habtoor, chairman of Al Habtoor Group, on Monday unveiled Al Habtoor City, a leisure and hospitality development for 11 billion Dirham (3 billion U.S. dollar) that the group claims would be the largest in the world.