“There are no limits.” Ali Rashid Lootah pauses for a second, leaning back in his chair to take a sip of water – room temperature, no ice. “That is my message for 2016. In Dubai, there are no limits.”
When the chairman of one of the UAE’s biggest developers makes such a bullish statement, it is hard to gauge the appropriate reaction. Is it good news? Or a big red flag flapping in an already pretty gusty period of global economic uncertainty?
Because the Emirates have been here before. And blindly embracing the notion of ‘no limits’ played quite a major part in a real estate market that came crashing down spectacularly across the region back in 2008.
But that was then. And the chairman of Nakheel – known and widely respected for skilfully navigating the multi-billion-pound property developer giant through the last crash – is convinced that this time, things will be different.
With a fresh focus on developing retail, leisure and hospitality schemes to target a new wave of less discerning tourists in Dubai – “We are looking at three- and four-star hotels and resorts as a priority now” – and by expanding outside of the UAE for the first time, Lootah insists that Nakheel is on solid ground.
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