Gulf expo highlights affordable housing shortage

Construction sector among hardest-hit from lower oil prices

DUBAI, UAE, Sept 12, (AP): Tens of thousands of luxury projects were on display at a premier global property show in Dubai on Monday, but missing from the glittering mock-ups and pipeline of home dreams being rolled out were more affordable housing projects for the Middle East’s large and burgeoning population of young and aspiring home owners.

Property analysts say oil-exporting countries in the Gulf are facing an immediate need to create more affordable housing, especially as the price of living rises.

Once awash in oil revenue, Arab governments in the Gulf are racing to try and create new sources of income. To offset the impact of lower oil prices on state revenues, governments have lifted subsidies on food and energy and are rolling out a value-added taxation system.

The construction sector, though, has been among the hardest-hit.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, the government has not being paying contractors on time. This has affected payments to subcontractors and delayed the completion of projects, including government-backed affordable housing units.

Major construction firms like Saudi Oger and the Saudi Binladin Group have faced major downsizing, thousands of layoffs and protests by disgruntled workers, including several highly-publicized incidences in which low-wage construction workers primarily from South Asia complained they had not been paid their salaries in months.

“The biggest challenge in Saudi Arabia is actually delivering the product,” said Craig Plumb, head of research for the Middle East and Africa at investment company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

“There’s a lot of announced projects... but they don’t have the contractors, they don’t have the quality builders to actually deliver on time and on cost and that’s actually probably been made slightly worse over the past year or so because a lot of the contractors have had to withdraw from the market,” he said.

Plumb was speaking at Dubai’s Cityscape real estate event, where developers from across the Middle East unveiled their projects — many still off-plan — and pitched to investors wanting to grow their portfolios.

Developer Damac, for example, announced its luxury villas designed by Just Cavalli. Others showed off high-rise towers with two and three bedroom apartments starting at well over half-a-million dollars and still to be handed over at the earliest by 2020. People visit the MAG Property Development stand at the Cityscape Global exhibition, on Sept 11, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Tens of thousands of luxury projects were on display at Dubai’s premier property show on Monday, but missing from the glittering mock-ups and pipeline of housing dreams being rolled out were more affordable

housing projects for the region’s large and burgeoning population of young and aspiring home owners. (AP) DUBAI, Sept 12, (RTRS): Doha Bank has cut around 10 jobs in the United Arab Emirates and plans to put some staff in the region on unpaid leave, sources said, as it copes with the fallout from Qatar’s rift with its Arab neighbours.

Qatar’s fifth-biggest lender will decide by the end of the year whether to make those going on long-term leave redundant if conditions have not improved, said two of the sources familiar with the matter.

One source said around 100 staff could be put on leave, while another said it might be as high as 200, although the sources said the final number