UPDATE 1-Emaar Properties to list mall unit on Dubai bourse

Mon, May 26 03:06 AM EDT (Adds details) DUBAI, May 26 (Reuters) - Dubai's Emaar Properties said on Monday it will list up to 25 percent of its malls business on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), a shift from earlier plans to list on the emirate's smaller Nasdaq Dubai exchange. The builder of one the world's largest malls - Dubai Mall - said it had received regulatory approval for the primary listing of up to a quarter of Emaar Malls Group. Companies listing on DFM are normally required to float stakes of at least 55 percent but exceptions to the rule have been made in the past. Nasdaq Dubai has a much lower free float requirement of 25 percent, but it attracts less trading activity than the DFM and has only 10 listed equities. Timing of the offering and listing would be announced later, the statement said. It is expected to raise 8 to 9 billion dirhams ($2.18-$2.45 billion), making it one of the region's largest equity offers since 2008. Company officials previously said there might be a dual listing on Nasdaq Dubai, the smaller of the emirate's two exchanges, and on the London Stock Exchange. It was not clear whether the company still plans to list in London. Dubai luxury developer DAMAC, the only real estate firm from the emirate to list in London, got a lukewarm response to its share offering in a sign that international investors are still wary of the emirate's property market despite a recent recovery in prices. Sources told Reuters in April that the developer is talking to regulators about the possibility of listing its shopping malls unit on the DFM. The listing is a boost for the Dubai bourse where new IPO activity had died down after the emirate's financial crisis in 2009. A recovery in the economy has prompted more companies to consider new listings. (Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by David French and Jason Neely) ============================== UAE mid-table in property transparency index Lucy Barnard June 22, 2014 Updated: June 23, 2014 09:09:00 Dubai came 49th and Abu Dhabi 53th in a transparency index of 102 global real estate markets. ■ ‘Property booms are good for UAE economy’, says Damac boss ■ Dubai landlord insists on rent rise at any time if ‘Rera calculator says so’ Photos In pictures: Dh44 million penthouse at Elite Residence is ‘cheap’ ■ Dubai Courts list sheds light on 36 cancelled projects ■ Dubai and Abu Dhabi rental yields may indicate overheating, says UAE Central Bank The new table – which measured real estate markets, most of them national, based on the ease with which property could be bought, sold and valued – ranks Dubai and Abu Dhabi as retaining their places as the top two markets in the Middle East and North Africa. When the study was last conducted in 2012, Dubai ranked 47th and Abu Dhabi came 52nd out of 97. “The UAE has retained its position as the most transparent real estate market in the region, although there has been little further progress made over the past two years,” said JLL, the property consultancy that prepared the index. Overall, the UAE placed behind countries including India, China, Botswana and Thailand in the index. Libya came bottom of the table of the 102 countries surveyed, preceded by Senegal and Myanmar. JLL said that Dubai, which had featured among its “top improvers” in previous surveys “appeared to have lost some impetus” and to have been ”treading water” over the past couple of years. The assessment comes despite the Dubai Land Department putting forward a series of measures aimed at improving the legislative and regulatory environment in an attempt to avoid another real estate bubble. These include a doubling of property transfer fees last year, the announcement of unified real estate contracts and a move by the Central Bank to introduce loan- to-value ratios on mortgages. The report found that Abu Dhabi had a more regulated planning system than Dubai and the quality of real estate was higher than Dubai in several sectors, reinforcing Abu Dhabi’s position as the second most transparent market in the Mena region. However, the report found that there had been “disappointingly little progress elsewhere” in the region. “The Middle East and North Africa remains one of the least transparent regions in the world,” JLL said in its report. “Following encouraging signs of improvement in transparency prior to the global financial crisis, the region has not maintained momentum. While there is increasing recognition across Mena of the importance of improving real estate transparency, in most cases this has failed to translate into firm action.” The Dubai Land Department was unavailable to comment when contacted by The National, while Abu Dhabi’s Urban Planning Council declined to comment. A partner in real estate at the law firm DLA Piper said the emirates would benefit from updated property laws. “The fact that both Dubai and Abu Dhabi have not improved in the rankings in this report probably reflects the fact that there has not really been any new real estate legislation enacted in the emirates over the last two years,” Duncan Pickering said. “In Abu Dhabi the market has been expecting five new real estate laws since 2007 or 2008 on issues such as strata title, an interim register of off-plan sales and escrow accounts. In Dubai there are also laws which have been proposed but not enacted yet,” he said. “And there are a number of issues surrounding successfully implementing existing legislation.” Mr Pickering said transparency attracts investors by reducing perceived risk. “International investors take a global view and compare lots of different markets when they are deciding where to put their money,” he said. “They are usually attracted to markets which have higher levels of transparency so that they can reduce risk. At the moment this is a very competitive market with lots of countries attempting to attract that cash.” JLL singled out Qatar, placing the country on its global top 10 improvers list alongside Zambia, Serbia and Colombia. The improvement came after Qatar announced a new “open data” policy earlier this year which involves plans to release a large quantity of government held, non-personal data to residents and to improve public access to the land registry and other real estate data. Countries were given a composite score based on 115 individual data points and questions for each market. These were based around each country’s transaction processes, regulatory and legal transparency, governance of listed vehicles, the amount of reliable property market data available and the way in which property performance is measured. The United Kingdom retained top spot in the global survey, followed by the United States and Australia. JLL said that over the past two years, it had noted an improvement in transparency from more than 80 per cent of the markets it surveyed as developing countries attempt to attract inward investment to their real estate markets. “The world’s dominant commercial real estate markets are in better shape than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09,” JLL added. “Levels of capital markets activity are returning to pre-crisis levels and real estate investors are moving up the risk curve into new geographies and property types. Meanwhile, corporates are now executing long-term portfolio strategies and selectively extending their footprints into emerging markets.” “As momentum builds across the global real estate markets, investors, developers and corporate occupiers are demanding (and expecting) ever greater levels of real estate transparency – in terms of legal and regulatory enforcement, financial disclosure, fairness of transaction processes and access to high-quality market data and performance benchmarks.” lbarnard@thenational.ae Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/property/uae-midtable-in-property-transparency-index#ixzz35WbgCqVp Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook ==================================

IMF urges Qatar to operate more efficiently

IMF urges Qatar to operate more efficiently By: Lesley Walker | 19 mins agoView as "Clean Read" | 0 Comments 25 Richard Messenger Meeting tight project deadlines without going over budget will require Qatar to carefully oversee its many public investment projects, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in its latest country report. Qatar currently has $210 billion worth of projects in the pipeline, with the government bankrolling the majority of them ($160 billion). In a series of recommendations, the IMF urged Qatar to set up an integrated public investment management process to coordinate the planned infrastructure and development projects underway ahead of the 2022 World Cup. This would prevent construction bottlenecks and rising costs, and ensure that projects are delivered on time, the IMF said. The international body also called for Qatar to further strengthen its fiscal institutions, and to create a medium-term budget for all its projects. Meanwhile, Qatar could also see improvement in the arena of efficiency, the report said. While its government effectiveness is broadly in line with its GCC peers, the report cites World Bank figures that show Qatar is “lagging behind (other) resource-rich, advanced economies,” such as Canada, Norway and Sweden. Greater efficiency would help Qatar maximize its existing resources across all its projects, delivering them on time with better value for its money. Forthcoming projects Qatar’s level of public capital spending relative to GDP in 2012 was almost twice as high as public investment in other emerging markets, excluding China. Infrastructure and construction projects underway include: •The new Hamad International Airport, which soft launched late last month; •A new port; •A rail and metro system; •Development of residential areas; •New petrochemical plants; and •The upgrading and expansion of Qatar’s road network. This is in addition to the redevelopment and construction of at least eight new stadiums for the World Cup. “Given the ambitious investment program envisaged under the National Vision 2030 and compressed timetable ahead of the FIFA Cup 2022, the focus on investment efficiency is essential,” the report said. Eye on cost Examining Qatar’s efficiency, the report used statistics from Zawya’s database of MENA oil-exporting countries to compare construction costs of large public infrastructure projects. It noted that while construction costs on Qatar’s metro project appear low, the project is “subject to the risk of cost over-runs.” While it states that Qatar’s metro seems quite expensive when taking into account relatively low labor cost, the report adds that Qatar still compares favorably to its MENA peers. The quoted figures do not take into account Qatar’s need to import most of its raw materials. The report also noted that Qatar’s road projects appear “expensive,” at a per km/per lane cost of between $0.7 million to $7.4 million. This compares to Oman’s rate of $1.5 million, but land values, quality and technical competency were not factored into these figures, it said. The IMF report comes as Qatar moves to streamline a number of publicly-funded organizations. For example, the Doha Film Institute made 40 of its staff redundant in January of this year. Thoughts? ======================================== Qatar sets out labor reforms after rights criticism, but no timetable Wed, May 14 16:43 PM EDT By Amena Bakr DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar unveiled plans for labor reforms on Wednesday after persistent criticism from rights groups over its treatment of workers, but it set no timetable and the changes would still leave employees without a minimum wage or trade unions. Qatar has the highest proportion of migrant workers per population in the world and a lack of workers' rights has attracted international attention as the country prepares to host the 2022 soccer World Cup. Pressure on the Arab country grew after Britain's Guardian newspaper reported in September that dozens of Nepali construction workers had died and that laborers were not given enough food and water. Qatari and Nepali officials denied the report. The proposed reforms include replacing a contentious sponsorship law, known as "kafala", in which workers need their employer's permission to change jobs, with a system based on employment contracts, officials said in Doha. An exit permit law requiring workers to obtain an employer's consent to leave Qatar will also be reformed. The proposals follow a Qatar-sponsored review of its labor legislation by British-based law firm DLA Piper, which made a number of recommendations including the creation of a minimum wage for each category of construction worker. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has said more than 1,200 men have died in preparations since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in 2010. Qatar has said no construction workers have died working on a World Cup site. In response to the planned reforms, the ITUC said the announcements gave no guarantee for workers in Qatar. "No moves were announced to stop the death and injury toll amongst the migrant workforce," it said in a statement. The reforms envisaged do not include the creation of trade unions or the establishment of a minimum wage. Officials outlining the changes at a press conference said that wages were dictated by market supply and demand. Under the reforms, workers will have their wages paid electronically to avoid late payments. And the country would adopt a "unified accommodation standard", a measure apparently aimed at improving the quality of migrant workers' housing, which is often spartan or squalid. The officials also propose raising to 50,000 riyals ($13,700) from 10,000 riyals a fine for employers holding the passport of an employee, a common practice among most construction firms and other companies in Qatar. Currently the fine is rarely enforced. REFORMS "SOON" "Let it be clear the current kafala system will be replaced with a system based on employment contracts and that will govern the relationship between the employer and employee," said Abdullah Saqr al-Mohannadi, director of the human rights department at the ministry of interior. But these proposals would now have to go through the Shura Council, a consultative body, as well as Qatar's chamber of commerce and government departments prior to their conversion into law, said Muhammad Ahmed al-Atiq, assistant director general of expatriate affairs at the ministry of interior. "God willing we hope that this will happen soon, but it's hard to put a timeframe," he said. Unions are banned in Qatar, the world's top exporter of liquefied natural gas, and workers who strike in protest are often deported. Human rights organization Amnesty International described the proposed reforms as "a missed opportunity" for Qatar.

"Based on today's announcement the proposals appear to be a missed opportunity. The government claims it is abolishing the sponsorship system, but this sounds like a change of name rather than substantive reform," James Lynch, Amnesty's researcher on migrants' rights in the Gulf, said in a statement. "While some of the measures

announced today are positive and if implemented would improve conditions for workers, they do not go nearly far enough," he added. However, Sepp Blatter, president of world soccer's governing body FIFA, welcomed the changes and has decided to postpone a scheduled trip in mid-May to Doha until after the 2014 FIFA World Cup, to allow him more time for him to gain an understanding of the reforms, FIFA said in a statement said. "This announcement is a significant step in the right direction for sustainable change in the workers' welfare standards in Qatar. We look forward to seeing the implementation of these concrete actions over the next months," Blatter said in the statement. According to DLA Piper's report, Qatar has 1.39 million migrant workers, which makes its the highest migrant to citizen ratio in the world, with migrant workers making up 85 percent of the population. DLA's report also found that the prescribed accommodation standards, which allow a maximum of four people in a room, are not being met by some contractors. ($1 = 3.6407 Qatar riyals) (Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by William Maclean and Susan Fenton) ===================================================