Sama Dubai reviews projects amid global crisis

Sama Dubai, the real estate division of Dubai Holding, which recently unveiled projects worth almost $55.2 billion, is “reviewing its project pipeline” in the light of the global economic downturn, the developer said on Thursday.

But no decision has been taken by Sama about cutting staff or putting on hold any projects it has already announced, the spokesperson added in an emailed statement to Arabian Business.

“While it is true that Sama Dubai, like many other organisations, is currently reviewing its project pipeline to adapt itself to changing economic realities, no decision has been taken vis-à-vis employee lay-offs, or putting on hold any of our officially announced projects,” the Sama Dubai spokesperson said.  

The spokesperson said the company had eight projects in its portfolio at the moment.

Sama Dubai, featured three projects at Cityscape Dubai 2008 last month worth nearly $55.2 billion including Salam, which are resorts in both Bahrain and Oman, Dubai Towers in Doha, Qatar, and its Amwaj project in Morocco.

Its announcement comes as major UAE developers cut jobs and scale back some of their projects as the global economic crisis hits the Gulf.

Palm developer Nakheel said it was reviewing a number of projects and would scale back work on some of them while Emaar, the Gulf Arab region's largest property developer by market value, said last week it was reviewing its jobs policy in light of the global financial turmoil.

Their comments followed the announcement by Dubai-based Damac that it was cutting 200 jobs and Omniyat Properties which also said it was cutting back, with 60 jobs thought to be lost.