India Emaar’s future, we are doubling down on country: Mohamed Alabbar, Founder, Emaar Properties
Mohamed Alabbar is more than just the managing director of Emaar Properties, the Dubai real estate firm that built the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. The multi-faceted entrepreneur and investor is also taking on Amazon in West Asia and spearheading UAE’s first digital bank Zand. In a video interview with Kailash Babar and Arijit Barman, Alabbar spoke frankly about mistakes made in India, future growth prospects and investment opportunities in digital assets as well as the stronger than ever bilateral ties between UAE and India.
Edited excerpts:The Dubai real estate market has seen a significant appreciation in land prices since Covid. What is leading to this escalation? I think during Covid a lot of people from all over the world discovered Dubai. Whether from Iran, Russia, England, Africa or India, they realised that the city has proven that it has great policies, while infrastructure is robust with good healthcare and quality of life.
So, we have a lot of people coming in from all over the world, including from India, and it was a big discovery for people. But remember, Dubai is a very small town, it has 3 million people only. So if we have 500 people from Africa and 500 from India, 500 from Russia, we do not have enough homes or stock.
Because it’s a tiny place, we were overwhelmed.Several well-heeled Indians have made Dubai their second home. Some estimate 30% of buyers are Indians… The integration between UAE in general, specifically Dubai, and India is historic. The benefit of this long relationship really continues to grow.
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