The United Arab Emirates' rail company has ordered seven locomotives for delivery by 2012 from Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), a unit of Caterpillar Inc, the UAE firm said on Sunday.
State-owned Etihad Rail plans to complete UAE's 40 billion dirham ($10.9 billion) rail project in the next seven to eight years, and later link it to other regional lines in the Gulf Arab region.
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A looming US debt default may not have any immediate repercussion on the UAE economy, but the crisis might further dent the value of dirham that is pegged to a sinking dollar, further fuelling domestic inflation.
The UAE Central Bank, in a bid to soothe public fears about the negative implications of a possible US default on the UAE economy, said on Thursday it was not presently holding any US treasury bonds or any other financial instruments issued by the US government “due to the very low return on holding such instruments.” The Central Bank added that it was confident that the US officials would meet the August 2 deadline on raising the country’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
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Saudi Arabia’s economy grew by around 3.8 per cent in real terms in 2010 and is expected to sharply pick up by nearly 6.5 per cent this year because of higher oil output and public spending, a key Saudi bank said on Thursday.
The world’s top oil exporter and largest Arab economy is expected to overshoot its budgeted expenditure by more than a third in 2011, tempted by a surge in crude prices and its foreign assets, the Saudi American Bank (Samba) said.
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Emaar Properties, the builder of the world’s tallest tower, on Tuesday recorded a net operating profit of Dh843 million in the first six months of 2011, and said it would roll out a five-year corporate strategic action plan to drive long-term value creation.
Despite a drop in delivery of new units in the second quarter, the better performance was due to “superior performance of the hospitality and malls businesses and higher margins,” the Dubai-based developer said.
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Investors in the White Bay project, now under liquidation, are being offered a property swap option by a Dubai-based developer, who claims to have approval from the liquidators to make such an offer, Emirates 24|7 can reveal.
“We are presenting this offer with the permission of liquidators. The offer is part of our move towards offering a viable solution to affected customers from other developers. This also adjusts the new sales of our own units,” Ahmed Shaikhani, Managing Director, Memon Investments, said in an emailed response.
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Saudi Arabia’s foreign assets are forecast to reach a new peak of SR1.9 trillion at the end of 2011, the National Commercial Bank, or NCB, said.
The sustained strong oil prices coupled with higher crude output pushed the Kingdom’s foreign assets to a record high of more than SR1.8 trillion at the end of May this year.
The bank said the country boosted supply to one of its highest levels of 9.4 million bpd to offset Libya’s supply disruption. It noted that in recent years, the Kingdom’s policy of stockpiling foreign assets has been noticeable, adding that this policy has not changed.
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Investment bank Rasmala reckons a 20 per cent downside potential to property prices in Dubai, estimating that an additional 35,000 homes will be delivered in the emirate between 2011 and 2013 – boosting the existing housing stock of an estimated 330,000 units by about 10 per cent.
“We believe the Dubai residential market may see delivery of 30,000-35,000 units of apartments and villas combined between 2011 and 2013, upon an existing supply base of roughly 330,000 units. This translates into roughly 10 per cent incremental supply over three years, which we believe will further depress real state asset values,” the bank said today in a report on the UAE’s real estate market.
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Dubai's housing market still has nearly a third too much supply and prices will plummet by another 10 per cent, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.
Residential property prices in the emirate will fall 58 percent from a peak in the third quarter of 2008 according to the median estimate of 11 banks, investment firms and research institutions.
Rentals will, however, fall by five per cent in 2011 and one per cent next year, the median forecast showed.
Abu Dhabi rentals are expected to drop 10 percent this year and two per cent in 2012.Many expat professionals in the country consider the UAE a good place to work in, according to a poll conducted by Emirates 24|7.
Places like Singapore and India, have become very favourable after the recession but according to experts the choice may be due to other factors and not just the salary levels.
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A company under Dubai-based investment group Al Ghurair would build a storage facility in Vietnam to hold between 1.5 million and 2 million tonnes of petrol and oil products, a Vietnamese government report said.
Al Ghurair Commodities would open a subsidiary in Vietnam and use the storage to supply fuel to neighbouring countries, Chief Executive Officer Saeed Saif Al Ghurair was quoted in the Vietnamese government report late on Monday as saying.
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Rents in some areas of Sharjah have risen 2 per cent over the second quarter of 2011 despite a power cuts, petrol problems and a growing exodus of tenants to Dubai.
Quoting officials from real estate firm Asteco, Gulf News reported that rents for studio apartments in Al Khan and Corniche have climbed up to Dh25,000 though prices have fallen in other areas of the emirate. Office rents in the two areas also saw an increase by 5 per cent.
However, the growing exodus to Dubai, where the rents dipped further, continues even as tenants are prepared to pay the premium to be closer to their work places.
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Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways said its revenues grew by 28 per cent to $1.72 billion in the first half of the year, as the unlisted carrier looks to break even in 2011.
Etihad, which began operations in 2003, said in a statement on Wednesday that it saw a 2 per cent reduction in cost per available seat kilometre despite soaring oil prices.
Seat factor - the percentage of available seats that are filled during a specific period - increased to 72.9 per cent from 72.5 per cent seen in the first half of 2010, while passenger numbers rose 14 per cent to 3.8 million, James Hogan, chief executive of Etihad said in the statement.
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Dubai dropped 26 places to be ranked 81 globally in the list of most expensive cities for expatriates, making the emirate potentially more attractive places for foreigners to live, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
Price increases for the Mercer basket of goods and services remained moderate in Dubai during the period March 2010 to March 2011.
The trend of falling accommodation costs continues across the Middle East region, driving the cities down the global cost of living ranking and, particularly in the case of politically stable markets such as the UAE.
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More developers in Dubai should offload their unsold inventory at “sufficient” discounts to spark off sales in the primary market, says a real estate expert.
“We want to see more of these offers because it shows that the primary market is become more realistic and, assuming discounts are sufficient, will spark transactions.
Currently, the primary market is stagnating, especially for units still under construction. Of course, this will impact the secondary market, but secondary price declines, especially in outlying areas, were always inevitable,” Jesse Downs, Director of Management Consulting, Jones Lang LaSalle Mena, told Emirates 24|7.
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Affordable communities such as Discovery Gardens and International City saw rents falling 11 per cent and four per cent, respectively, in the second quarter 2011 compared to the first quarter, while upmarket locations such as Palm Jumeirah, Downtown Dubai and Jumeirah Beach Residence remained relatively stable, according to a new report.
Asteco, a Dubai-based property management company, said apartment rents fell two per cent on average for a number of areas across the emirate as large number of tenants started moving from two and three-bedroom apartments to townhouses, or small villas.
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UAE-based Etihad Airways has signed a sponsorship deal with the English soccer club Manchester City, Bloomberg News reported.
The carrier will get the naming rights for the City of Manchester Stadium under the deal. Etihad is already involved in a 2.3 million pound (Dh13.5 million; $3.7 million) shirt sponsorship deal with the club.
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Dubai World announced on Wednesday that it had signed agreements setting out the terms to separate its property units Nakheel and Limitless in order to transfer them to the Dubai government as part of a complex and protracted restructuring process.
The board of the Dubai government’s flagship conglomerate also named Andy Watson as its managing director and Junaid Rahimullah as chief financial officer.
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Dubai’s real estate is likely to witness some stability in capital values while Abu Dhabi will see highest value declines over the next 12 months, a latest Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) survey has said.
“While Dubai is already passed the supply peak, Abu Dhabi is still approaching the peak of the supply cycle. Thus, Abu Dhabi rents and sale prices are expected to continue to decline in the coming year,” the global property consultancy said in its 2011 Middle East and North Africa (Mena) Real Estate Investor Sentiment survey released today.
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Details surrounding the new three-year real estate visa announced by the UAE government last week are flying in thick and fast.
While this website on Monday spoke to a source who claimed to be in the know as to what was discussed at these meetings before announcing the decision, no official statement has been forthcoming so far. Until now.
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A few developers in Dubai have challenged Real Estate Regulatory Agency’s (Rera) decision to cancel their projects, says a top legal expert.
“We are aware of some developers challenging Rera cancellations, as is their right under Decree 6 of 2010. The cancellation of any project has significant negative repercussions on developers, both financially and to their reputation and brand image. Developers are ready to take prompt and effective action to appeal any purported termination,” Shahram Safai, Partner and Head of the Real Estate Team at Afridi & Angell, told Emirates 24|7.
