Qatar housing prices are expected to rise again from late 2009 and growth in the property market to continue due to infrastructure needs in the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, executives said earlier this month.

‘We will see stability very soon, by the third quarter and the market will start climbing again,’ Brian Meilleur, president of Al Waab City, a US$3.3 billion mixed-use property project, said on the sidelines of a construction conference here.

‘Once we get this one done, we would like to look further into Qatar and look regionally as well.’

Qatar house prices have fallen as much as 30 per cent in the last six months due to the global slowdown, but high demand for property will limit price weakness, real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle said in May.

The economy could grow 7 per cent or more in real terms in 2009 as it boosts gas production, its economy and finance minister said.

At the end of March 2009, around 191 construction projects were under way in Qatar, with a total value of US$82.5 billion, Dubai-based research firm Proleads said in April.

Infrastructure projects, including roads and bridges, education and sports projects, are some areas that are likely to experience growth in Qatar over the coming years, said Yahya Jan, Dubai-based vice-president and design director for NORR Group, a Canadian engineering and architecture company.

‘We are bidding for a number of very large projects in Qatar,’ Mr Jan said. ‘Whether oil is US$35 or US$135 a barrel, there will be tremendous revenue coming to the region because they are exporting energy.’ Qatar, which is bidding to host the FIFA football World Cup in 2022 and currently hosts several sports tournaments, is spending billions of dollars on property projects.

The focus of real estate developers in Qatar and other Gulf Arab states should be more on the middle-income housing market, said Steven Miller, Dubai-based managing director of FXFOWLE, a US architecture company.

‘Everybody in the region wants to be high income which is ridiculous. You can make money in middle income, but you can’t make stupid money,’ said Mr Miller, adding that the company is interested in education projects in Qatar.

Source: Business Times, 9 Jun 2009

(DUBAI) Qatar, the world’s biggest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has announced a 20 billion riyal (S$7.9 billion) development project to rejuvenate 35 hectares of the capital’s downtown, the project developer said on Sunday.

The five-phase Heart of Doha project, scheduled for completion in 2016, will include 226 buildings and more than 12 hectares of open space, Dohaland, a subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation, said in a press release. A national archive, a 500-700 person auditorium, three hotels and a primary school will be constructed, Dohaland said.

Allies and Morrison of the UK and US-based Burns & McDonnell have been hired to do design work for the project, said Chatura Poojari-Abbasi, a communications manager for Haggie Hepburn, which represents Dohaland.

Qatar, which has a per capita GDP of US$101,000, has used revenue from oil and LNG exports to turn the country’s capital into a cultural centre.

IM Pei designed the Museum of Islamic Art, a white-stone building on an artificial island. The government backed Education City, a campus with branches of six US universities, including Cornell University’s medical school and George- town University’s foreign service programme.
The first phase of the Heart of Doha project is scheduled for completion in 2012, Mr Poojari-Abbasi said. — Bloomberg

Source: Business Times, 26 May 2009