With ambitions to become a hub of global commerce, a top tourist destination and a shopping center– a New York/Hong Kong/Las Vegas/Miami rolled into one – Dubai has been spending billions of dollars to build an astonishing modern city nearly from scratch in a mere 15 years. Some US$100 billion worth of real estate under construction or in the pipeline continues the boom to date.
In Dubai, shopping malls, luxury hotels, residential towers and artificial islands are being built. Around 5 million tourists visit Dubai per year and the city –according to government literature- is planning for 15 million by 2020.
For Dubai, Singapore has been the model that has already proved that combining business with tourism can be a successful formula for a city-state. To do this, Dubai has turned itself into a transport hub; the existing airport is being expanded and a new airport planned with six runways and the capacity to handle 120 million passengers per year. One of the new runways will be dedicated to cargo aircraft, which will load and unload at the world’s first ‘logistics city’.
A new report, “Icons of Imagineered Urbanism: Real Estate Development in the Gulf with a Focus on Dubai” was released by Arab Advisors Group’s Financial Markets Research division on August 27, 2006. The 50-page report has 29 detailed exhibits and 29 figures and pictures. The report presents a thorough overview of the outstanding urban development in progress in Dubai and all the main mega projects in the city-state. The report further profiles all the major players in the market including Emaar, United Development Company, Gulf Finance House and Kuwait Finance House - Bahrain. Moreover, the report highlights developments in other cities in the Gulf such as Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Manama.
“Dubai is not the only city engaged in a construction boom of tremendous proportions attracting international interest; Doha (Qatar) and the island state of Bahrain and are also in the race. The sister emirate Abu Dhabi now also wants a slice of the action. These are examples of ‘instant’ cities or ‘cities within cities’ that are focal points of their government’s efforts to promote real estate development. They are not cities like London, Paris or New Delhi that have been shaped through a long process of evolution.” Dr. Samer Bagaeen, holder of a PhD in
Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of London, wrote in the report, which Dr. Bagaeen authored alongside Arab Advisors analyst Mr. Shadi Nino.
“The challenge for Dubai and the UAE is to retain their attractiveness for investors and expatriate residents as not just an attractive place to live and work, but also as a cost-effective location. The Dubai municipality is planning for a population of 5 million by 2020 compared to the present 1.2 million. While an official cap on rent increases to 15 per cent has been imposed until the end of 2006 to reduce the frenzy, the growth of rents became a big concern in 2005. As in Qatar, there are expectations that the vast real estate developments under way will lead to a more stable real estate market.” Dr. Bagaeen concluded.
