$680m to be used to finish projects in Dubai

The unfinished projects of Dubai

When the double whammy of the economic recession was followed by the Dubai debt crisis, a lot of construction projects in the emirate were cancelled or put on hold indefinitely, but what about those that were midway through construction?

Some schemes such as the Burj Khalifa were very close to completion so were able to scrape through, but a large number of projects have essentially stalled without funding. However today, the Dubai Municipality has ridden to their rescue, announced that they would be putting aside US$680 million (AED 2.5 billion) of its budget for 2010 to complete construction projects that were in trouble.

"Propelling the economy"

Speaking on Monday, Hussain Nasser Lootah, director general of Dubai Municipality, said that the municipality had a budget of AED4.393 billion for the current year, but municipality income was expected to reach AED4.865 billion, leading to a surplus of up to AED472 million for 2010.

Lootah said the allocation of the funds to complete construction projects in the emirate "reiterates Dubai Government's support for the completion of infrastructure projects that propel the economy."

However, he stressed that lessons had been learnt from last year saying the Municipality was pursuing "strict fiscal policies in its work, especially through the rationalisation of expenditures".

Projects that have had their initial stages completed and are expected to receive some of the funding include the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Jebel Ali, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Awards Complex, Al Warsan Nursery project and the basic infrastructure for an Olympic-sized swimming pool project and a number of construction projects for public parks. Last year, over AED5 billion was spent on these projects, so it is not known how much the AED2.5 million put aside for uncompleted works will be able to contribute to their completed.

In November, research firm Proleads said some 1,845 projects worth a combined US$657 billion were still active in the UAE, despite the recent downturn in property prices (by 50 percent in some extreme cases) seeing more than 400 projects with a total value of over US$300 billion had being placed on hold or cancelled in the UAE, a large majority of them in Dubai.

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