Dubai Informer

Dubai’s metro rail project will cost 28 billion dirhams ($7.62 billion), or 80 percent more than originally planned, officials said on Sunday, as the emirate races to complete the high-profile work on Sept. 9. The government has positioned the massive project as central to its progressive image in the Middle East and continued to invest in [...]

Herve Jaubert, a French spy who left espionage to make leisure submarines for the wealthy, was riding high. bankrolled by Dubai World, a government-owned conglomerate, he built a submarine workshop on the Persian Gulf, lived rent-free in a villa with a pool and tooled around town in a red Lamborghini. He had two Hummers. He vacationed [...]

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of flydubai, unveiled a new era in Middle East aviation today when he revealed the first of flydubai’s 50 Boeing 737-800 Next-Generation aircraft. flydubai is Dubai’s first low cost carrier and aims to make travel a little less complex, a little less stressful and a little [...]

The office of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, is to impose new minimum standards across all labour camp accommodation in the Emirate, Construction Week can reveal. The move was revealed by UAE Minister of Labour HE Saqr Ghobash during an impromptu speech at [...]

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has announced he will be holding an online question and answer session with residents and the media in a week’s time. The online ‘town hall’ meeting, as the event is being dubbed, will take place on Sheikh Mohammed’s official [...]

Dubai’s New Code of Conduct – this is the full text version. The “Rules of Conduct in Dubai” were prepared by the Executive Council under the direction of HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoom, Crown Prince and Chairman of the Council. The aim of this document: This guide aims at setting the standards [...]

The UAE government is thinking about (or has already put in place?) a law that will prohibit private companies from firing UAE nationals from their jobs. Of course this does not count if the employee does something wrong and that’s the reason for him being sacked. But what in an economic downturn? You cant fire people [...]

Dubai’s population is continuing to grow, a government official said yesterday, despite reports that the economic downturn has resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs. The emirate issued 1,000 more visas a day than it cancelled last month, Raed Safadi, the chief economist for the Government of Dubai, said yesterday at a conference. “They’re still positive,” [...]

The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has finished its ‘complete journey planner’ to encourage people to use the Dubai Metro. “Since many residents believe that people will not use the metro during the summer months when the average temperature is recorded at above 40C the complete journey planner is the answer to their doubts,” said [...]

The World Bank’’s report Doing Business in the Arab World 2009 says the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the easiest country to do business in the Middle East. The report ranked UAE in the 14th place globally in its assessment of 181 countries. “Economies that have efficient customs, good transport networks and fewer document requirements, making [...]

Dubai’s government plans to increase public expenditure by around 20 per cent in 2009 to stimulate the service-based economy, the Financial Times quoted a senior policy-maker as saying on Saturday. Nasser Al-Shaikh, director-general of Dubai’s finance department said it would

Instead of having multiple identity cards like driving licences, work permits, employee cards, passports, e-cards, the UAE Federal Government created a single national identity card in April 2006, with in-built smart features including biometrics and advanced ID features that will eventually eliminate the need to carry multiple cards. At a later date, it can be [...]

A 13ft whale shark that has spent weeks as the star attraction in a huge tank in the lobby of a luxury hotel is to be freed after a campaign that included protest songs and the setting up of a “Free Sammy” page on Facebook. Since the £950 million Atlantis hotel opened in Dubai last [...]

Dubai Municipality has launched a campaign called “Let us protect our residential environment…together.” It is the culmination of a campaign it started in February 2006 to implement classification and codification of land use in the emirate of Dubai in order to prohibit labour and bachelor accommodation as well as multi-family housing in the residential districts. [...]

All expats living in the UAE have a stark choice: obtain a national Identity Card or face deportation. GulfNews Residents living in the UAE who don’t have the new cards by the end of 2010 will be considered illegal. And their employers will be penalised. “Without the cards, expats will face difficulties dealing with all [...]

Applications can be filed starting next Tuesday for new visit visas which were revamped under a Federal ruling last June, a senior residency department official said on Tuesday. The new fee schedule for the visas, which range from visit visas to visas for medical treatment should have started August 1, according to an earlier announcement, [...]

Faith in Dubai’s real estate sector could be shaken if the plethora of developments coming on to the market next year outstrips demand and if the government goes back on its promise to issue residency visas. published in Gulfnews “I think a bigger worry would be if the government withdrew its promise to grant residency [...]

A new house rent index that will suggest benchmark rents for all the communities in Dubai, to be published soon by Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera), is expected toreverse the gains of a seven per cent rent cap and turn the tables against the tenants in favour of the landlords. The index will have [...]

When speaking about Dubai and the so-called “real estate bubble”, conversations tend to focus on the short term. “What will happen in 2009-10 when projects are completed and handed over – will prices level off or even worse, fall?” I can remember back in 2004 when people were asking those very same questions. The truth [...]

This Gulf desert nation, one of the world’s most environmentally unfriendly with its ubiquitous air conditioning, swimming pools and SUVs, may be looking to redeem itself. It has begun building what it calls the world’s first zero-carbon city. Environmentalists say Masdar City – powered mainly by solar energy and recycling waste and water – is [...]