After nosing around the market for the past few years, Emaar of the UAE now appears ready to dive head first into the Algerian real estate market. On October 3, the company announced plans for four multi-purpose developments in and around Algiers. Worth $20 billion, Emaar’s new venture represents the largest single investment in the Algerian property sector. The new scheme dwarfs the company’s previous largest development in North Africa, the $14 billion Century City in Tunisia, where work began in August this year under the aegis of Sama Dubai. The center piece of Emaar’s Algerian venture will be in Sidi Abdullah, an upmarket development covering up to 1500 hectares some 30 kilometers from the capital. The Sidi Abdullah project, slated to be an “education” city by the Algiers government, had long been stalled owing to the political uncertainty of the 1990s. Although infrastructure and roadwork will need to be
