Come January 04 2010, The WORLDS LARGEST man made concrete & steel structure will be opened for WORLD. The date will coincide (not by accident) with the date of accession to power of HH Sheikh Mohammed Ruler of Dubai & Prime Minister of UAE. The 160-plus storey structure is considered the world’s tallest building., under the banner of EMAAR. The leading realtor & developer under the flag ship company of Sheikh Mohammed’s ETA

The area around the Burj is known as Down Town Dubai, on the edge is Dubai Mall or Mall of Dubai housing the famous Dubai Aquarium.

Some of the projects touted in the Dubai property market during the boom years showed that the developers behind the schemes had ‘lost touch with reality, and clearly lost touch with the cost and value aspect of the development’. ‘It got to a point where crazy projects were coming up, and people thought that the only way to keep up was to announce an even crazier one. There was no longer any concept of tracking the cost or sustainability of a development versus the returns…Not every project can be the ‘biggest’ and ‘the best’.’
A new report on the state of Dubai’s property sector as the market enters the fourth quarter of 2009 has found that all facets remained in the downward phase of the cycle, with prices and rentals likely to continue falling over the rest of the year

tonite at 090909 hrs the previliged elites of Dubai – UAE will be riding the Dubai Metro. The selected station to launch the metro is Mall of Emirates on Sh. Zayed Road. Among elite passangers, few of commoners selected through a ballot will be onboard as well. Tonite the Gulf State of Dubai will be 1st one of the region to have driver less mass transport system which is elevated & underground as well.

come 10 09 09 and it will be open for all.

UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, believes the worst of the financial crisis is now over, following its ’significant’ impact on the economy during the final quarter of 2008. Taking part in an electronic question and answer session with the press, he said the UAE economy is expected to grow this year, albeit only slightly.

Sheikh Mohammed said that the economy is in better shape than in many countries, so the ‘contraction it [the small and medium business sector] has suffered is only temporary.’

Don’t believe the Dubai hype; good or bad
Media follows fashion dictates. For many years, glossy magazine stories about the high life in Dubai were the only journalistic diet one could get. Now the tide has changed, and the flavour of the month is doom and gloom stories about Dubai the ghost town, where traffic suddenly moves freely and people leave unpaid-for cars at the airport with maxed-out credit cards in the glove compartment.
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There is some justification for this: A recent HSBC report sees average price declines in real estate of 23% in Q4 2008. It is in line with anecdotal evidence and is more credible than another report by Colliers International, a real estate company, that speaks of 8% price declines over the same period. Even rents have started to come down after having been a major contributor to inflation over recent years.

Sales of so-called ‘off plan’ properties, that only required a down payment and were flipped many times before a single brick was laid, have come to a virtual standstill, as buyers recognise that leverage works on the upside, but it works on the downside as well. If many people cannot pay follow-up installments, they are forced to sell in a now illiquid market, or the developer gets back a foreclosed off-plan property without the possibility of reselling it to raise the remaining finances for completion of the project.

UAE – 2000 EMPLOYMENT VISAS CANCELLED DAILY

Uncertainty among Indian expats in the UAE is reaching maddening heights as jobs vanish by the day. An average of 1,500 to 2,000 visas are cancelled in the white collar sector every day, according to an analyst with a leading Dubai firm.

Schools are flooded with applications for transfer certificate as families get ready to return home. There would be an exodus to India by March.

Though there are only a total of 3,200 declared job losses by seven companies in Dubai, estimates from market sources put this at 20,000.

Unofficial figures hint at 30,000 white collar jobs lost in the past three months. This is in addition to the tens of thousands of labourers rendered jobless every week.

Sudhir Kumar Azhakath, Partner & Head of Corporate Communications and Public Relations, Morison Menon Chartered Accountants, a leading audit firm in the West Asia, told Express that companies were re-evaluating strategies and restructuring resources to cope up with the global and local challenges.

Most of the companies have stopped giving pink slip figures as it might land them in trouble with the Ministry of Labour.

Emirates NBD (merged entity of Emirates Bank International and National Bank of Dubai) had fired 1,800 employees.

Another 1,700 pink slips are in the pipeline.

This means 32 percent of a total workforce of 11,000 would be jobless in what the company terms ’shedding of extra fat.’ Standard Chartered had cut 500, HSBC 250 and ADCB 750.

One major Indian school has a got transfer certificate applications for 900 students till last week, which is 10 percent of the school’s student population.

There are more than 10 major Indian schools in Dubai alone.

This is due to various reasons including job loss, high cost of living and tuition fees and high rentals.

The proposal to raise the minimum salary to 10,000 Dirhams for family visa status would make it impossible for a large chunk of expatriates to retain their families in the UAE. A recommendation to this effect has already gone from the Federal National Council to the Federal Government.

Sudhir Kumar warned that by March/April there will be a huge flow of Indian expatriates. “Out of this 70 percent will be Keralites going back for good or deciding to stay alone and send their families for good.

And there are a lot of other expatriates who will also be moving out – Pakistani, Egyptian, Sri Lankan, UK, Germany etc. Recently 70 UK expatriates left their luxury cars in the airport and left the country. And more than 100 expatriates from India and other countries left similarly.

It is officially estimated that Dubai’s 2008 population of 1.3 million will come down by 8 percent this year. But according to me it will go down by more than 25 percent.”