Thursday 22 September 2011

Abu Dhabi’s Spending on Soccer, Skyscrapers Masks Slower Times - Businessweek

Ramy Kaddourah got the keys to his apartment in Abu Dhabi’s Raha Beach development two years late as the boom in the United Arab Emirates capital started to wane.

“Everyone got really excited about the plans to build up Abu Dhabi, then out of nowhere everything came to a stop,” said Kaddourah, 31, who runs a local private hospital and invests in property to rent. “If this can happen here, I don’t want to imagine what’s happening in the rest of the world.”

Abu Dhabi internationally is the oil-rich emirate spending billions of petrodollars on English soccer team Manchester City, the iconic Chrysler Building in New York and London’s Gatwick Airport. Yet that image is masking pressure at home as the government supports its six neighboring emirates while financing a $500 billion development plan.

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