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MAF mall empire set for $3.5 billion expansion
Majid Al-Futtaim Properties (MAF), the Dubai-based retail, property and investment company, aims to double its portfolio by 2015 with 14 new projects in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, Syria, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. MAF Properties, which is famous for building an indoor ski slope in Dubai, currently runs 10 malls across the Middle East and North Africa region, and plans to invest $3.5 billion in the coming five years to build four new shopping malls in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and the UAE. The malls are scheduled for completion by 2014 and will increase the company’s total gross leasable area from 800,000 square meters to more than 1.3 million square meters. The group’s chief executive, Peter Walichnowski, declared that sales in the company’s malls were not significantly affected by the global financial crisis. He added that shopping malls were important infrastructure for modern living in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Doha’s new airport set to land
Qatar has announced that the first two phases of the $14 billion New Doha International Airport (NDIA) will be completed by the end of 2011. The initial phases of the airport will have the capacity to accommodate 24 million passengers and 1.4 million tons of cargo each year. The runway and the main terminal structure are already in place. When the whole project is completed, it will be able to accommodate 50 million passengers using 175 check-in counters, and will be surrounded by five artificial islands. The airport will also provide 50,000 jobs. Qatar is currently competing with its neighbors Abu Dhabi and Dubai to become the Gulf’s transit center, linking it with Asia and Europe. The project’s costs have increased substantially from the date of its inception in 2004, when it was estimated at $5.5 billion.
Egyptian inflation falls
Egypt’s inflation rate fell to 11.4 percent in April from 12.2 percent in March 2010, its third drop this year and its lowest rate in seven months. The Egyptian Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics reported that the improvement resulted from a decrease in the prices of food and beverages due to higher output from domestic manufacturers. Food and beverages account for more than 40 percent of the weighted basket of Egyptian consumption goods used to measure inflation. The Central Bank’s strategy of keeping interest rates unchanged and relatively low is paying off in terms of promoting growth, while keeping prices under control. Coupled with increasing rates of privatization, consumer goods manufacturing is advancing at the cost of a decline in industrial manufacturing, since the latter remains underdeveloped. Finally, in terms of real gross domestic product, Egypt’s economy reportedly grew by 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 2010 from a year earlier, whereas it expanded by an annual 4.5 percent in 2009.
