DUBAI: Cityscape, the Gulf’s major annual real estate show, opened in Dubai on Monday as a scaled-down version of past years, reflecting the sharp deterioration in the emirate’s property sector. Floor space used by real estate developers has slumped by 30 percent compared to 2008, while attendance at the four-day event was expected to drop by 20 percent, organizers said ahead of the exhibition. Some 1,500 firms from 150 countries took part in last year’s event.
Cityscape has over the past years of construction frenzy been a venue to unveil new projects, but only pre-announced projects or nearly-completed developments were being featured this year.
“No one is expecting to see multi-billion-dollar projects launches or major finance deals being brokered,” said Cityscape’s Managing Director Rohan Marwaha on the show’s webpage.
Nakheel and Emaar, Dubai’s major master developers, are poorly represented, amid earlier reports that they would stay away.
Nakheel at last year’s Cityscape announced plans to build a one-kilometer (3,280-foot) tower, outdoing Emmar, whose nearly-completed Burj Dubai is already the world’s tallest building at above 800 meters (2,625 feet).
But no impressive displays of the tower and surrounding Nakheel Harbor and Towers were on show this year, as the project has gone on hold while Nakheel struggles to pay off its mounting debts. Nakheel confined its stand to a scale model of the completed Palm Jumeirah — the only one completed among three man-made palm-shaped islands, in addition to another smaller project.
Projects of several other developers, which impress as scale models, remain in the “concept” stage, according to exhibitors.
Developers from neighboring Abu Dhabi, whose property sector grew in the shadow of Dubai’s boom, appeared to have a strong presence, occupying large parts of this year’s show.
“Now, it is time to look at real estate, here and in the rest of the world,” said Donald Trump Jr., the vice president of Trump Organization, addressing a parallel conference.
Trump, however, said that his company’s own project, Trump International Hotel and Towers on Dubai’s Palm Island that has been put on hold, would not go ahead soon.
Meanwhile, Dubai house prices appear poised to fall another 10 percent in 2009 as financial woes linger, a Reuters poll showed, in stark contrast to more mature markets in Britain and the United States which are showing signs of life.
Residential property prices in the former boomtown have yet to reach a bottom and have a 20 percent chance of picking up before 2011, according to the median forecast of nine analysts at banks, investment firms and research institutions.