JEDDAH, 7 August 2006 — With the Saudi and Gulf real estate boom showing little signs of abating, the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry is geared to host the Kingdom’s first international real estate conference later this year. The event — IREF-ME 2006 — is due to be held at the Jeddah Hilton Hotel from Nov. 4-6. London-based conference group, ICG, is organizing the conference in cooperation with the JCCI and in association with Islamic Banker magazine, the market reference for the global Islamic finance sector.
According to the organizers, this event will be the first international real estate conference being organized in the Kingdom, which also straddles both the conventional and Shariah-compliant investment sectors. The Kingdom is by far the single largest real estate market in the GCC, whether in terms of owners of capital, market size or potential market growth.
With global oil markets sustaining current levels, all projections indicate that the increasing GDP growth rate and levels of private wealth in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the Gulf will maintain an upward momentum in the foreseeable future.
Most analysts stress that real estate as an asset class will dominate the investment scene in the Kingdom and the rest of the region including in new areas such as social housing, home financing and securitization. “As such the conference, which focuses on the Kingdom, the GCC and international markets could not be more timely,” says JCCI Secretary General Mohamed Abdullah Al-Sharif.
According to many bankers, the projected volume of capital growth in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the GCC over the next few years is “mind-boggling.” This massive liquidity in the market has also generated huge private wealth, which is continuously in search of value added investment opportunities both at home and abroad.
Saudi and other Gulf investors are emerging as some of the top investors in real estate assets in traditional markets such as the United States and the UK.
According to DTZ Research, Gulf investment in the commercial property market in the UK has increased from four percent in 2004 to 11 percent last year and this trend is projected to increase over the next few years. In addition, as highlighted by recent transactions, investment savvy GCC investors are exploring new opportunities in emerging new markets such as India, China, Japan and Eastern Europe.
With all these factors in play, the upcoming conference aims to leverage these issues to highlight the role, contribution and importance of the sector to the Saudi economy. At the same time, it aims to explore and inform interested parties about the current state of the real estate market, focusing particularly on the regional markets and those others that are popular locations of GCC investment such as the United States, the UK and the European Union.
The conference will also consider new market opportunities, future product trends including private equity and Waqfs, innovations in housing finance, developments in social housing and the case for real estate insurance. It will also discuss the spectacular emergence of Shariah-compliant real estate investments and look at the importance of women investors in the Saudi and GCC real estate market.
The conference will also explore the various risks associated with real estate investments, legal issues such as regulation, domicile and ownership, and real estate as a function of social inclusion policies.