Nakheel’s REIT path

Nakheel hopes to raise as much as Dh10 billion creating tradable real estate investment trusts. The revenues will be used to fund new projects; the REITs will be listed in Singapore and Dubai.
The plan is to create two REITs: one for infrastructure with an asset value of between Dh5 billion and Dh6 billion; another for homes with a value of between Dh3 billion and Dh4 billion.

Read more

Let’s all move to Qatar

Reports from Qatar suggest the government is to ban landlords from raising rents for the next two years. The drastic action is to help combat record inflation rates. A 27.7 per cent surge in rents spurred inflation in the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas to 13.74 per cent in December, the second-fastest pace on record.

It is the latest in a series of Gulf government schemes to get a grip on falling purchasing power. If it’s not rent caps, it is price controls on basic foodstuffs or bumper pay rises for public sector workers.

Read more

Gulf funds as Abramovich’s Chelsea

Another day, another ambitious announcement from a Gulf sovereign wealth fund. Yesterday Qatar Investment Authority said it was to spend $15bn over the next year acquiring assets, today it is the turn of Dubai International Capital. The investment fund, owned by the ruler of Dubai, plans to invest $5 billion in China, India and Japan over three years.
"Clearly because of the growth in emerging markets, we believe companies having exposure to emerging markets will grow significantly as well," says the fund's chief operating officer, Anand Krishnan. DIC wants to raise its asset base from $13bn to $30bn by 2012.

Read more

Inflation busts faith in governments

It is failing cooperatives, it is greedy supermarkets, it is ineffective government policies, it is imbalances in public and private sector pay. Whatever it is, the facts on the ground are that the cost of living is increasingly expensive. Consumers in Kuwait claim the price of basic foodstuffs has risen as much as 40 per cent in the past three months.

With the official inflation rate at 7.3 per cent in October, Kuwait Times says the price of staples (cooking oil, rice, eggs, fresh milk) has shot up and that low-income families are struggling to pay the bills.

Read more