Friday 27 February 2009

Dubai's Union Properties theme park put on hold

DUBAI, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Dubai-based Union Properties UPRO.DU said on Thursday its has suspended its $460 million Formula One theme park due to the financial crisis and drying up of liquidity from banks.

"The suspension will delay the opening of the Formula One entertainment concept until 2010," it said in a statement on the project which was scheduled to be completed in 2009.

"The project is founded on a strong business model that withstands recession whilst allowing for the future growth of Dubai," Penny Fischer, marketing director for F1-X said in a statement.

Global's UAE Weekly Report - February 26, 2009

"In our effort to provide the investment community, economists and researchers with an array of market reviews, we at Global Investment House are proud to present “The Weekly report on UAE Stock Markets”. The report views the latest developments in Abu Dhabi Stock Market (ADSM) & Dubai Financial Stock Market (DFM), trading activities, indices performance and corporate news. We hope you find this publication useful.



In order to view the full report kindly click on the headline."

Abu Dhabi in $10bn Jordan project

Al Maabar International Investments, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s largest property companies, will invest Dh36.7 billion (US$10bn) into a property development in Jordan at a time when major projects across the region are being scaled back.

Marsa Zayed, a 3.2 million square kilometre mixed-use development along the waterfront of Aqaba in the south of Jordan, will be the largest property and tourism project in the country’s history. The project is named after the late Sheikh Zayed, the founding president of the UAE.

Al Maabar bought the land from the government of Jordan last year for $500 million. The land will be handed over in June and construction will begin in the first half of next year.

Arabtec calls in stewards over cancelled racecourse deal

Arabtec Holding and a Malaysian engineering firm are seeking compensation for a Dubai racecourse construction contract that was cancelled last month, an executive at one of the firms said.

Riad Kamal, the chief executive of Arabtec, said the two firms had entered arbitration with their former client, Meydan Group, to settle the dispute. “We’ve started arbitration proceedings,” he said.

Meanwhile, WCT, the engineering firm, announced to the Malaysian bourse that it was initiating a civil legal challenge on top of the arbitration proceedings against Meydan for “breach of contract”.

Bahrain to issue bonds for housing

Bahrain said on Thursday it will sell nearly $800m worth of bonds to finance house building projects and bolster the island’s beleaguered economy.

Bahrain’s ministry of labour will issue the bonds over the next six months, Ibrahim bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the kingdom’s housing minister, told CNBC Arabiya, a regional television station. The minister said the government spending was “needed to break out of the global financial crisis”.

Bahrain is the most diversified and least indebted economy in the Gulf region, but was the first country to be put on a negative outlook by a rating agency, due to its large financial sector and the government’s reliance on dwindling oil revenue.