Chinese company wins Damac contract

Damac Properties, the real estate developer listed in Dubai, said it awarded a Dh512 million ($139m) contract to China State Construction Engineering Corporation to build a component of its Aykon City mixed-use project.

The contract covers civil construction works for Tower C, the residential tower in the $2 billion luxury development overlooking the Dubai Water Canal, Damac said yesterday.

Chinese state-backed CSCEC had already won a Dh600m contract in February to build Aykon City’s Tower B – a 63-storey project comprising 964 serviced apartments and hotel units.

Tower C, known as The Residence, will have a total built-up area of nearly 1.8 million square feet across 62 storeys. It will feature studio, one, two and three-bedroom

apartments, and The Club, a residents-only lifestyle and entertainment space.

“After a thorough tendering process, we have chosen to expand CSCEC’s remit in the Aykon City project beyond Dh1.1bn, having awarded them the contract to build Tower B earlier this year,” said Ali Sajwani, Damac’s general manager of operations.

Damac Properties reported a 46 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit to Dh378.2m in the second quarter of this year, below the average Dh450.7m estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Revenues were up 11 per cent year-on-year to Dh1.78bn. Damac has about Dh5.32bn of debt on its balance sheet, and group chief financial officer Adil Taqi told

The National last month that the company plans to lower the debt below $1bn over the next two to three years.