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Interview Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Dubai World

For Dubai Drydocks World, the ongoing international financial crisis is not a problem but an opportunity, said the head of Dubai World – the group that owns the company. In an interview with Emirates Business, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman of Dubai World, said it is important to know when and where to invest to take maximum advantage of a crisis such as the present one. He said Drydocks World’s investments in South East Asia are a well-considered move that seeks to benefit from the region’s shortage of shipbuilding and maintenance facilities. More than half of the company’s revenues last year came from that region, he added. The company is bullish about the Asian market as a whole and is in talks to acquire a Chinese maritime company – a first step towards a firmer foothold in the region. The firm does face a few challenges, though, he said. The biggest is recruiting and retaining suitable manpower, while getting UAE nationals to move abroad remains another one. How has the global financial crisis affected your business? It has not affected our businesses at all. We are still getting more and more contracts on a regular basis. How important are your investments in South East Asia? South East Asia, especially Singapore, is a very important place in terms of the size and numbers of vessels operating there. This area is also short of maintenance facilities. Therefore, it was a strategic decision to invest there in both building and maintenance of ships. How has your performance in the South East Asian region been so far? Last year, we made $1.5 billion [Dh5.51bn] in revenues from this area, plus another $1bn from Dubai dry docks. What about competition in this sector? And how are you facing it? Currently, there are dry docks in Dubai, Oman and Qatar. These are all competing to serve in the Arabian Gulf area. So we are in competition with the existing companies on their own turf. The main reason for us to move into and invest in this part of the world [South East Asia] is because of our customers, who were impressed with our services in Dubai and asked us to come to serve them on or near their home bases. Has the global financial crisis impacted on your business in South East Asia? It has not affected us, as our dry docks in Singapore and Indonesia are fully booked for the next two years. We are also investing in China so that we can take more contracts. Is this the right time to buy assets? And where? Yes it is. And currently we are looking to invest in China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Latin America. The first investment, for which we are still negotiating, will be in China through a 60 per cent stake in the company Top Niche. Then, we are going to invest in other companies as and when there is an opportunity. How would you assess the Chinese market? It is not an easy one. To enter this market, we have to plan well. We are entering the Chinese market through a $50 million investment in the company that already has a major presence in China – Top Niche. What is more important to you, the building or maintenance of vessels? Revenues from maintenance services is much more than from building new vessels. In this area, 70 per cent of the vessels are more than 20 years old, and therefore many of them need very specialised maintenance services in order to get insurance cover and be able to sail. As far as building new ships is concerned, there is a huge demand for vessels, which is rising due to the increase in global trade volumes. Vessels are important to transport goods from one place to another and so ship building activities will go on increasing. But, as I said, maintenance, especially in this part of the world, will always be slightly more lucrative. What are the major challenges that you are facing? The biggest challenge is to be able to recruit and retain qualified staff, especially UAE nationals. The majority of our staff in our locations abroad are not UAE nationals. It is difficult to get them to relocate, as they don’t want to live and work abroad. Currently, we have a number of programmes to attract more UAE nationals, especially engineers, to work abroad. What made you go abroad? We are keen to diversify our income. We don’t want to limit ourselves to Dubai only as a source of income. This will also help us in facing the global financial crisis. The other important reason is that our customers, whom we serve in Dubai, were impressed with our services and they have asked us to set up base in South East Asia to serve them better and save them the effort of travelling to Dubai to get maintenance services. We have also developed oil rig-building facilities, and these have a healthy demand. And what about your recent projects in Dubai? We are expecting an increase in profits of Drydocks World, especially in our operations in the Dubai dry dock and Dubai Maritime City. In Dubai, we have developed the luxury yachting sector with facilities that were earlier available only in Europe. How important is the Asian market to Dubai Drydocks World? Asia today is the most important area. Most dry docks in Asia have closed due to the increase in the cost of living and problems with labour unions. There is a huge latent demand and we are investing in this area to cater to it. What was the reason behind your setting up a training school on Battam island in Indonesia? The purpose is to train the workers there and improve their professional as well as living standards. Our idea is not to exploit these workers but to give something back to them and their community. Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem: Chairman of Dubai World Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem is the chairman of Dubai World – the Dubai-owned company that controls about 100 businesses. The 52-year-old oversees all of Dubai World’s activities, which include property, retail, private equity, financial services and maritime services. He started his career in Dubai as a customs official and has served as the head of Jebel Ali Free Zone. He also chairs property major Nakheel and has set up Istithmar, a private equity fund with investments in financial services, tourism and healthcare businesses in the United States, Europe and Asia. Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem was educated at Temple University in Pennsylvania, and has been described as one of the key individuals who manoeuvered Dubai away from a country that had merely struck oil in the 1970s to a shipping, property and tourist nation. By Muna Ahmad business24-7.ae

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Abu Dhabi plans a second city centre

Abu Dhabi plans to create a second city centre to accommodate a projected threefold growth in population. « We are creating the Capital City District, with a population of 350,000 to 380,000 residents, » Falah Al Ahbabi, General Manager of the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council told Bloomberg. « It will form a second centre for Abu Dhabi, located on the mainland in the area that has been known up to now as Khalifa C. » The population of Abu Dhabi will grow from around 1 million people to 3 million by 2030, according to the planning council. « This will pose significant sustainability challenges in terms of mobility and transportation, » Al Ahbabi said in the statement. The UPC is thinking ahead many years to decentralise population density currently centred in the north eastern part of Abu Dhabi Island, with a high density spine extending southwards along Airport Road. « Abu Dhabi’s population is projected to rise to three million by 2030. This will pose significant sustainability challenges in terms of mobility and transportation concerns. In 2008 with approximately one million residents, Abu Dhabi is centred in one area, posing immense challenges for commuters, » said Al Ahbabi. « The remainder of Abu Dhabi Island is developed with palaces, villas, mosques, schools and other institutional and recreational activities while there are extensive low-density suburbs on the mainland. » By 2030, the UPC reckons the land use structure of the city will change dramatically to create a city, which will function well with more than three times its current population. « We are creating the Capital City District, with a population of 350,000 to 380,000 residents, which will form a second centre for Abu Dhabi, located on the mainland in the area that has been known up to now as Khalifa C, » explained Al Ahbabi. « It will sit on an axis that is an extension of the Mussafah Bridge alignment. The new district will be at the centre of the mainland Emirati communities. » On Abu Dhabi Island, the city centre will be expanded north-eastwards to encompass Sowwah Island (the new Financial Centre), the redeveloped Mina Zayed port area, and parts of Reem Island. This will continue to be the financial and commercial heart of Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile the Capital City District – the new location of the UAE Government, embassies and some Emirate and Municipality government functions – will be appropriate for the seat of the National Government. « As the capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi is asserting its natural political leadership by promoting a visionary and forward thinking urban development strategy with its own dimension given to the term and based on influence rather than size. By developing the concept of ‘Sustainable Urban Mobility’, the UPC is promoting a concrete and influential example that demonstrates the consistency of our approach. It demonstrates our capability to cope with the contemporary urban living life-styles promoted in Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, » said Al Ahbabi. New transport infrastructure will be developed to connect the City Centre with the Capital City District. The existence of two centres will create an efficient movement system. In single centred cities there is a great ‘tidal flow’ of commuting traffic into the centre in the morning that congests incoming routes while leaving outgoing routes half empty. Then the opposite happens for the evening commute. In a dual-centred city, there is nearly equal movement between the centres, so that street space and public transport are fully utilised in both directions at once. Al Ahbabi clarifies: « By breaking the mould of a traditional ‘City Planning’ model, the UPC is promoting a new mindset through responsive urbanism concepts. Our role is to think and act ahead in order to deliver on our promise. » In 2030, Abu Dhabi will have a series of major centres of activity. In addition to the dominant City Centre and Capital City District, Abu Dhabi will have a series of major centres of activity. The Abu Dhabi mainland will expand substantially with the redevelopment and expansion of Shahama-Bahia, Baniyas and Wathba. WAM

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Financial crisis hampers Middle East energy projects

Energy projects in Gulf oil producers have become the latest victim of the festering global financial crisis as it is depriving them from funding and discouraging full capacity expansions, according to officials and experts. Besides worsening fund shortages, the crisis has already sharply depressed oil prices and is set to smother global demand which is seen by key crude producers as vital for full-blown capacity expansion programmes. Over the past few weeks, crude prices have tumbled by at least 50 per cent and they could continue their slide in the absence of strong demand growth, sharply pushing down the main source of income for Gulf oil heavyweights. Such problems have been complicated by a surge in the value of energy projects in the region because of soaring construction costs as well as other factors. « One year after its gravity became apparent, the US mortgage induced credit crisis has moved into a protracted and more severe phase. The crisis now has the potential to slow global economic growth and, as a result, depress oil markets and prices, » said the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation (Apicorp), an affiliate of the 10-nation Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. « Even in taking a longer-term view to investment, constrained capital (for both debt and equity) would combine with continuing escalating costs and inadequate feedstock availability to cap further the upside potential of the energy investment outlook. Against this backdrop, the 2009-2013 review has revealed a higher potential for energy capital investment requirements in the region, now estimated at $650 billion (Dh2,388bn) , » Apicorp said in a study, sent to Emirates Business yesterday. « However, despite efforts by project sponsors to push ahead with implementation of initial development plans, many projects appear to have been postponed beyond the five-year horizon or have simply been shelved. As a result, the projects actually in progress amount to $520bn or 80 per cent. To be sure, the ongoing credit crisis has dented the investment outlook. » Apicorp’s figures showed investment requirements in the oil supply chain in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region are estimated at about $243bn, including nearly $153bn in the downstream sector. Gas investments during the 2009-2013 review period were forecast at around $165bn, while the rest would be pumped into power generation projects. « There is no doubt the outlook for energy projects in the Middle East is now dim because it has become very difficult to get funding while a sustained decline in oil prices will sharply depress the hard currency income of producers, » said Ali Alak, economics professor at Saudi King Fahd Petroleum and Minerals University. « But the main reason that could choke the pace of such projects, specially oil, is a the slackening demand as a result of the crisis. Oil producers have made clear they need demand security to push ahead with capacity expansion projects. In such circumstances, I don’t think they see much security. » Nearly half the potential energy capital investment requirements continue to be located in three countries namely Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar. Regarding funding, the study noted while capital requirements are relatively easy to assess, the associated capital structure, which reflects corporate financing policy decisions, is more complex, particularly in a context of a major international credit crisis. « Until able to evaluate the full impact of the crisis, we have continued to use the current industry standard, which is to first tap retained earnings (internal equity) to fund highly risky but highly profitable upstream and associated midstream activities. By contrast, the industry tends to rely more on debt and external equity for less risky downstream activities, particularly when funded under project finance structures, » Apicorp said. It said recent trends have continued to point to an average equity-debt ratio of 30:70 in the oil-based refining/petrochemical sectors. In the gas-based downstream sector, the ratio is put at 40:60 to factor in higher feedstock risks. Finally, in the power sector, the ratio is put at 25:75 to reflect the still highly-leveraged IPPs and IWPPs. Under these conservative assumptions, the resulting capital structure for the period 2009-2013 is likely to be 54 per cent equity and 46 per cent long-term debt, the study said, adding this compares with the equity-debt ratios of 50:50 found in the 2008-2012 review and 47:53 in the 2007-2011 review. « The annual volume of debt of $48bn, which results from actual capital requirements and the above structure, exceeds by 23 per cent the all-time record of $39bn achieved in the loan market at its peak in 2006. These amounts would hardly be met should current credit-market conditions persist. Not only has the cost of borrowing gone up as a result of an upward repricing of risks, but credit standards have been tightened. » The study said in this context, project sponsors’ credit ratings, which measure their ability to service debt, will be closely monitored, as well as the sovereign ceilings that bind them. « Our annual review of Mena energy investments for the period 2009-2013 has found a potentially higher capital requirements. The upside, however, is likely to be capped as a result of postponement (beyond the five-year review period) or the shelving of a substantial number of initially planned projects, mostly in the petrochemical sector. Obviously, constraining factors continue to be soaring project costs and the inadequate feedstock availability, » it said. However, funding uncertainties stemming from the credit crisis are adding to the challenges ahead. » By Nadim Kawach on Sunday

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Business normal, says Kuwait’s NBK

National Bank of Kuwait, the country’s biggest lender by assets, said on Sunday was not affected by the troubles of smaller lender Gulf Bank and expected to meet its 2008 profit target. « Business is going normally. On the contrary, there is a flight to quality. We are seeing deposits are coming to us, » Chief Executive Ibrahim Dabdoub told Reuters after the central bank said it had to support Gulf Bank after it suffered losses from derivatives trading. Dabdoub said he expected NBK to meet its 2008 net profit target of around 350 million dinars ($1.30 billion) after making 273.6 million dinars last year, but 2009 would be a tough year as demand for credit was lower due to the global credit crisis. « We expect to have reduced demand on credit. There is no appetite, » he said. Dabdoub said he saw no impact on the Kuwaiti banking sector as a whole after the central bank measures, describing the case of Gulf Bank as « single event. » « I’m not worried. Kuwaiti banks have a very tough supervision. Once the government announces a guarantee of deposits everything will be better, » he said. « There will be an impact on the stock market for sure, but the stock market is already sinking, » he added. Reuters

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UAE inflation may drop to 7%

Plunging oil prices and a stronger dollar will bring the UAE’s annual inflation rate down to seven per cent from its last measured point of 11 per cent, a top official has said. The lower price of oil has brought local diesel prices down while the weaker European currencies will result in cheaper imports of food and consumer goods, Salah Al Shamsi, Chairman of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Emirates Business. Oil registered another fall yesterday to $64 per barrel, while the pound and the euro are at multi-year lows against the dollar. ADCCI has noticed the fall in prices of many building materials and foodstuff last month, with steel and rice registering the largest decreases, Al Shamsi said. Inflation will drop even more if property values and rents are reduced in the Abu Dhabi and Dubai markets, he said. A number of new residential buildings will enter the two markets next year and that will lead to a gradual decline in values and consequently the inflation rate, he said. By Abdel Hai Mohamad business24-7.ae

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Saudi group in $2bn hotel deal with Starwood

Saudi-owned MBI International will sign an agreement to buy 12 hotels in France from Starwood Capital in deal that could be worth $2 billion, a Saudi newspaper reported on Sunday. The deal will include Le Crillon Hotel in Paris and 11 other establishments, Asharq Al Awsat reported, quoting unidentified sources close to the Saudi group. London-based MBI International, which is owned by Saudi billionaire Mohamed bin Issal Al Jaber, could not be immediately reached for comment. A deal will be unveiled « within the next few days » and the US firm is in the process of informing staff of the hotels involved in the deal, it said. Other hotels in the deal include Concorde Lafayette and Concorde Montparnasse. Jaber has said that his group is focusing its expansion at the luxury end of the real estate business. If completed, the transaction with Starwood will be MBI International’s second luxury property investment in France since June this year. It announced in July plans to spend 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to build two luxury towers in Paris. Reuters

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Pearl Dubai buys Dh100m private island

Residents of Dubai Pearl will now be a boat trip away from their own private beach after the developer, Pearl Dubai, bought an island at Nakheel’s The World development. The company paid US$27.2 million (Dh100m) for Archangel, a 1.6 million square foot island close to Siberia and is located in the north of the 300-island development. Pearl Dubai will spend another Dh800m building on it. A significant part of the island will be for the exclusive use of residents at Dubai Pearl, the company’s Dh15 billion project under construction opposite Palm Jumeirah. While Dubai Pearl will include a mix of hotels and apartment buildings, the one thing it lacks is a beach. “Pearl Dubai is supporting its clients with a beach at The World,” said Abdul Majeed al Fahim, the chairman of Pearl Dubai, which is a consortium of investors led by Al Fahim Group. “We will keep one section of the island for private development, while the other four will be for the residents. It will be like an exclusive beach, so people can feel the freedom of being there without any harassment.” With a Dh1bn partnership deal already in place with the French crystal company Baccarat for the Baccarat Hotel and Residences at Dubai Pearl, the developer is continuing to pursue investors in the luxury end of the market, despite some local firms moving their offerings downmarket because of changing conditions. An apartment at Baccarat Residences is being sold for about Dh6,000 per sq ft. “It’s not just about saying your building is ‘luxury’, it’s about what you provide. We’re very selective,” Mr Fahim said. Earlier this month, DIFC Investments, the investment arm of the Dubai International Financial Centre, put more than Dh3bn into the Dubai Pearl project. The company will develop office and residential buildings. More outside investors are expected to follow. Angela Giuffrida thenational.ae

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Dubai meeting to decide future of the internet

A crucial decision on the future of the internet will be made at a meeting of industry professionals in Dubai this week. A body that oversees the regional distribution of internet protocol (IP) addresses – the unique numbers that identify every device connected to the internet – will make a decision on migrating to a new addressing system that can cope with the explosive growth of the global network. The current IP address format means that only 4.3 billion unique addresses can be generated, a supply widely predicted to be exhausted by late 2010. The new format, known as IP Version 6 (IPv6), allows for considerably more: 79 billion billion billion times as many as the current system. But migrating to this system requires a co-ordinated effort by internet providers, one that the organisers of this week’s meeting hope to reach consensus on. “We knew for more than 10 years that we would run out of addresses,” said Axel Pawlik, the managing director of the RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC). “But the reach of the internet has grown much faster than a lot of people expected, so now it is more important to find solutions.” The meeting comes at a time when engaging the internet community in the Middle East – where internet use is growing faster than anywhere else – is of increasing importance to the organisations that govern the internet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the allocation of website domain names, will meet next month in Cairo. Earlier this year it committed to a series of reforms, including allowing website addresses to be written in Arabic script. RIPE, an independent non-profit organisation based in Amsterdam, manages the allocation of IP addresses in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. The transition to the new addressing standard will take many years, involving billions of dollars of hardware and software upgrades by internet providers around the world. In the meantime, said Mr Pawlik, the internet community will need to develop a system to manage the distribution of an increasingly scarce number of addresses. “We foresee that there may be something like a market developing,” he said. “A system to manage the transfer of IP addresses will be important.” While a market for addresses would make sense once they became a scarce resource, there will be a number of legal and technical hurdles to such a trade. Creating a framework for the transfer of IP addresses between different parties will be a key topic of -discussion at this week’s meeting. In an ideal world, Mr Pawlik said, internet providers would agree to migrate en masse to the new IPv6 system. But in practice, the process will be a complicated and messy mixture of technical and political bargaining and compromise. “If everybody suddenly agrees to pack up and move over to the new system, that would be the best outcome,” he said. “It is also the most unlikely.” Tom Gara thenational.ae

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Bahrain to Focus on Housing 
and Infrastructure Projects

MANAMA — The drop in oil prices will affect the growth rate in Bahrain but would not bring it to standstill, therefore turning the government’s focus on important infrastructure and housing projects, a senior government official has said. The Minister of the Premier’s Court Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa told the press in the three-day Bahrain International Property Exhibition 2008 (BIPEX) that concluded on Saturday that the government had been launching many initiatives to diverse its financial resources and becoming less dependent on oil revenues. He said that BIPEX was one of many initiatives to enhance property sector and attract foreign investments. “Bahrain urban development, paralleled with an economic boom, has achieved its set up goals through the implementation of various plans,” he said. The event was the fifth real estate and property exhibition and a continuation of previous ones. Shaikh Khalid pointed out that such quality exhibitions are a genuine expression of distinctive thought blending science with work. New housing projects are mushrooming all over the country from which thousands of Bahraini families have benefited Shaikh Khalid said, pointing out to the speech of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa before the national assembly in which he pledged every support to such projects. One of the main objectives of BIPEX was to provide the opportunity for developers and real estate agencies to measure the volume of demand and cater to buyers needs through provision of information about key issues such as funding, legal rules, tax systems, investment revenues, re-selling conditions and tax transfer on inherited real estate properties. During the last day of BIPEX, seminars on properties were held that tackled the shortage and high prices of building materials and how it affected the progress of some properties projects in Bahrain. Richard Browning, Chief Executive Officer of Riffa Views, confirmed to the Khaleej Times that the building materials problems had their effects on Riffa Views by delaying the handing over of properties to their owners by six months. He said that such a shortcoming was not a major problem and would not affect the trustworthy position and revenues of the company as buyers would be amused of the new to them concept of greenery surrounding in the heart of the desert. “We were keen to submit the houses all together to protect the main theme of Riffa View as a green heaven in the heart of the desert, while if we hand over completed homes then they new owners have to live through the inconvenient of being around construction operations,” he said. One of the seminars highlighted that the building materials problems have been eliminated through steps taken last summer by the government, including the cabinet decision to instruct government organisations to import their need of materials from aboard and allocate the existence supply to companies. In mid-October, the Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr Hassan Fakhro received traders of building materials to discuss the issue. Dr Fakhro stressed government’s keenness to ensure that adequate quantities of building materials are reaching the market from various sources in addition to its efforts to facilitate the distribution of the materials to companies operating in the construction sector. In this regard, he pointed out the importance of cooperation with the government. Dr Fakhro stressed the importance of holding such meetings to discuss the latest developments in the sector and to ensure the availability of cement and steel that are high in demand now. He added that it is important to make all efforts to provide basic materials to meet market needs and to avoid any scarcity that might happen especially as the Kingdom is witnessing urban real estate development. Building materials’ traders praised the minister and the ministry for their efforts in resolving various obstacles that the sector is facing. Suad Hamada khaleejtimes.com

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Gulf policymakers mull impact of world financial crisis

Finance and economy ministers and central bankers from the Arab states in the Gulf met for emergency talks on Saturday to forge a common front to battle the global economic crisis. The policymakers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met behind closed doors in Saudi Arabia to examine the impact of the crisis on their economies, Qatari Finance Minister Yussef Hussein Kamal said. They will discuss « mechanisms of coordination and cooperation between GCC countries aimed at protecting their economies from the fallout of the world financial crisis, » GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said. Stock markets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken a severe battering this month, losing some 200 billion dollars. Fears of a liquidity shortfall have also loomed over Gulf banks because of the global credit crunch, with the banks having limited ability to borrow on the international debt market. Saturday’s gathering in Riyadh came as the Saudi stock market, the largest in the Arab world, opened trading with a sharp drop of more than nine percent to its lowest point in four years. It also comes after OPEC, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, announced on Friday that it will slash oil output by 1.5 million barrels a day from November 1. The talks are also taking place three weeks before the United States hosts an unprecedented summit of the world’s richest nations and emerging economies to discuss the global financial crisis. Saudi King Abdullah will be the only Arab leader to attend the November 15 summit in Washington. khaleejtimes.com

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