REALTY STILL A WINNER
DUBAI — Dubai remains an attractive market for property investors despite softening rents and sale prices this year as the emirate still offers stable returns on real estate investment, a latest report says.
Property portal Bayut.com’s annual report for 2017 indicated a seven per cent and five per cent average return on investment on apartments and villas, respectively, in Dubai this year.
It identified Dubai Marina as the most sought-after area for both renting and buying apartments this year, while Mirdif and Arabian Ranches led the pack in villa renting and buying, respectively. It noticed Dubai International City as the most affordable popular area for both renting and buying apartments, while Mirdif offered the lowest-priced villas and townhouses in the emirate.
“As more and more off-plan projects are completed in 2018, handed over and put on the secondary market, we can expect prices continuing
dubai — The UAE’s telecom regulator on Saturday announced the launch of IMT-2020, known as 5G, and asked mobile network operators in the country to start preparing for the fifth-generation network, which will revolutionise Internet usage in the UAE.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement that licenced mobile telecommunication operators would begin preparing infrastructure for 5G from in early 2018.
The implementation of 5G will revolutionise the way the UAE residents browse, download, share content and use video chat on their gadgets due to the massive increase in data transfer and bandwidth. Its use will also facilitate the Fourth Industrial Revolution at the heart of which is artificial intelligence and smart cities, as well as handling massive data transfers in machineto-machine technologies and the Internet of Things.
“We are proud of being among the first countries to enter the 5G communication. This technology falls in line with the directives of our prudent leaders and UAE Vision 2021, which puts our country in its deserved place as one of the best countries of the world. We are optimistic that we are capable of fulfilling the objectives of the next phase,” said Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, director-general of the TRA.
The shift towards 5G will enable the UAE to achieve its global competitiveness targets, particularly its stated goal of achieving the world’s first position in smart government services and one of the top 10 in IT infrastructure readiness. The authority has formed three committees, including all stakeholders (operators, manufacturers, academia and users), to synergise the process.
The UAE was one of the first countries in the world to conduct several advanced technology experiments to introduce the IMT2020 technology since 2016 in order to experience high-speed mobile Internet access.