LONDON: As Dubai scales back plans to build a waterfront development twice the size of Hong Kong Island, 30,000 workers off the coast of Doha in Qatar are constructing a US$14 billion (US$1 = RM3.67) luxury residential project called the Pearl.
The first residents will move into condominiums costing as much as US$1.4 million on a man-made island this summer, and boutiques including the likes of Sonia Rykiel and Stefano Ricci are already doing business on the marina looking onto the Persian Gulf.
From the quayside, where yachts are moored, building sites are visible in the distance with cranes stretching up into the sky.
Gas-rich Qatar, the Gulf's fastest-growing economy, is spending more than US$100 billion in the next three years on projects including a new financial district and international airport.
This comes as Dubai suffers a real-estate crash spurred by its dependence on banking and tourism, and the region's oil-producing economies, such as Saudi Arabia, dip into reserves to avoid recession.
"Qatar doesn't seem to have any problems; the money is there," said Lionel Scharly, chairman of the French luxury design company Scharly Designer Studio.
After visiting Dubai in December and deciding not to do business, he is bidding for work at the Pearl and plans to open an office in Doha.
"In Dubai, everyone is talking about the crisis," Scharly said from Paris.
A sheikhdom smaller than the US state of Connecticut, with a population of about one million, Qatar last year had the world's second-highest per capita income, at US$101,000, after Liechtenstein.
It is hurt less than neighbours by the slump in oil prices to US$47 a barrel, from more than US$147 last July, because of a bet its rulers made 25 years ago: natural gas.
By Bloomberg
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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