Dubai’s property market could see a “cooldown,” one of the UAE’s largest developers has said, as he insisted “smart capital” would keep investing despite Iranian missile strikes.
Mohamed Alabbar, founder of Emaar Properties, the company behind the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, told CNBC’s Dan Murphy that “there could be a bit of a cooldown, but I really don’t see it,” adding that the UAE’s real-estate business is “not built on bank borrowing.”
“Bank borrowing is really restricted in this market. Consumer confidence will be shaken a little bit, but as I said, the policies of this country bring the confidence back so fast,” he said on Thursday.
He was speaking on the sixth day of an escalating war in the Middle East, in which the UAE has been hit with retaliatory strikes from Iran after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Tehran on Saturday.
Countries have repatriated their citizens. Dubai’s airport, one of the busiest in the world, was hit, disrupting flights, as were hotels and ports around the country.
