黑洞社区

Contractors have restarted work on a string of huge projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as evidence builds that the market in the UAE is recovering.

Tameer Towers, a 7bn dirham (拢1.2bn) 9 million ft2 mixed-use project in the Shams development on Al Rheem island in Abu Dhabi, was put under review in March, but is now going ahead again.

A 400m dirham (拢68m) project to build a headquarters for the municipal government of Abu Dhabi鈥檚 western region is also back on site, having been on hold for six months.

In addition, a residential project of up to 1 million ft2 by developer Bloom Properties in Abu Dhabi, has restarted.

Duncan Swinhoe, who leads Gensler鈥檚 Middle East operation, which is involved on all three schemes, said: 鈥淭hings are starting to move in Dubai and Abu Dhabi again. There are a number of projects coming out, and some tenders from as far back as nine months ago that we鈥檇 almost given up on are back on the table.鈥�

Regarding the Tameer Towers scheme, which had 300 men on site when work was put under review, he said: 鈥淭hey鈥檙e now pouring concrete and the new contract price is being thrashed out.鈥�

Tameer has dropped the alliance of three contractors it was using on the scheme 鈥� two local firms Al Habtoor Engineering and Al Rajhi Projects, and Murray & Roberts (South African) in favour of one, Al Rajhi. It said in March it was 鈥渞eviewing the construction programmes and associated costs鈥� of the scheme.

Swinhoe added that some schemes that had not started on site, but on which 鈥渁ll decision-making had ground to a halt鈥�, were live again.

Meanwhile, Davis Langdon is recruiting about 15 staff in the Middle East, including in the UAE.

Steve Coates, the consultant鈥檚 head of UAE, said: 鈥淲e believe we鈥檝e hit rock bottom and now an element of liquidity is slowly coming back to Dubai.鈥�

He said the cash was coming mainly from the $20bn (拢12.5bn) bond Dubai had secured from Abu Dhabi in March, the second $10bn of which is to be released imminently, according to reports. Commentators also say the UAE has been boosted by a rise in the price of oil, which is now at $60-70 a barrel, having hit a low of $32 in December.

The UAE building boom began to falter a year ago and 566 projects in the country are on hold, according to research firm Proleads. In August, 黑洞社区 reported that Dubai鈥檚 main arbitration body was facing a backlog of almost 拢3bn of disputes.