EFTA02582346.pdf

From: Sultan Bin Sulayem Sent: Thursday, April 3, 2014 1:21 PM To: Jeffrey Epstein; Jefftey Epstein Subject: Wall Street journal <=group style="margin: 0px; padding: Opx; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertic=l-align: baseline;"> http://m.europe.wsj.com/home-page <http://m.europe.wsj.com/h=me-page> Chinese l=vestors Change Face of Dubai Investment by Individual Chinese Investors Nearly Tripled Last Year <http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-CC137_CHINAD_D_20140401=51742.jpg> Shoppers visit a store in the Dragon Mart shop=ing mall, part of an emerging Chinese retail center in Dubai. Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS By RORY JONES <http://m.europe.wsj.com/articles=SB10001424052702304157204579475383372801044?mg=reno64-wsj#> About 15 miles from the Burj Khalifa on the a=ge of the Arabian desert is a growing housing and retail community that wou=d look more at home in Beijing than Dubai: Stores and restaurants have Chin=se signs and a huge dragon sculpture adorns the Dragon Mart shopping mall.<=span> After pouring billions o= dollars into cities including London, New York and Sydney, individual inve=tors and developers in China are expanding into Dubai. Chinese investors and developers weren't ver= active before 2009, when Dubai was hit by a real-estate crisis. But they n=w play an increasingly important role in the market, according to brokers, d=velopers and analysts. =emand from individual buyers is helping launch new developments and fueling=Dubai's residential recovery, while Chinese contractors and banks are revit=lizing high-profile projects that stalled in the previous boom. <= style="margin: Opx 0px 0.75rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: Opx;=vertical-align: baseline;">The market looked a lot different i= 2009, when Dubai World, one of the emirate's major government-owned holdin= companies, said it would stop making debt repayments, shocking global fina=cial markets and sparking a drop in residential house prices of more than 5=%. The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, opened weeks later.<=p> While residential prices rose b= about 35% last year, they still are 20% off their previous peak. In prime c=mmercial property, the market aimed at medium-to-large corporations, prices=are projected to rise by about 10% in 2014, after a 5%-to-7% increase last y=ar, according to Knight Frank, a London-based property consultancy.<=p> Indians, Britons, Pakistanis an= Saudis were the biggest foreign purchasers in the previous boom, and again=make up the largest portion of buyers. But Chinese investors are now one of=the fastest-growing buyers in the market, according to the Land Department.=/span> EFTA_R1_01759752 EFTA02582346 Built in 2004 on the o=tskirts of the city, Dragon Mart was developed by Nakheel, one of Dubai's b=ggest government- owned developers. It has become such a popular mall that N=kheel is now adding 177,000 square meters (1.9 million square feet) of reta=l space and a hotel. A=ound this retail Mecca, a Chinese community has sprung up in a residential e=tate called International City, which also was built by Nakheel. The develo=er estimates that half the population of about 100,000 in International Cit= is from China. What's=more, about half a new development of about a thousand town houses has been=sold to Chinese investors, according to Ali Rashid Lootah, the cha=rman of Nakheel. "They have bought in other areas, but not as much as Inter=ational City," Mr. Lootah adds. Many wealthy Chinese seek to invest abroad to diversify. They find D=bai attractive partly because they believe they can achieve returns of as m=ch as 30% annually—better than Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, whe=e real-estate markets are cooling, according to brokers, analysts and inves=ors. "The prices in Du=ai are much lower than in China," said Joan Chang, 32, a resident of the Un=ted Arab Emirates who is originally from Shanghai. She manages her and her h=sband's portfolio of five one- and two-bedroom apartments throughout the em=rate and is looking to purchase a villa. In 2020, Dubai will host World Expo, a six-month trade fai= that analysts forecast will boost the emirate's economy and increase real-=state prices. "This is the main advantage Dubai has in the future," Mrs. Ch=ng adds. Underpinning C=inese residential investment are greater commercial trade ties between the U=A.E. and China, noticeably in commercial real estate. Chinese developers, b=th private and state-owned, are expanding throughout the world as they seek=stable returns outside their slowing home market. Last year in Dubai, state-owned China State Cons=ruction Engineering Corp. bought an undisclosed stake in the $1 billion Vic=roy Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah. It created a joint-venture development comp=ny with Dubai-based developer SKAI Holdings to build and manage the project= and helped the venture win $201 million in financing from Industrial and C=mmercial Bank of China, according to executives at China State Construction=and SKAI. China State C=nstruction is known for building some of the highest-profile works in China= including the national swimming center in Beijing known as the Water Cube arid Hong Kong International airport. <=pan style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 25., 255, 0);">But now it is expanding overseas and moving into development, r=ther than solely construction. In December, it bought New York-based Plaza C=nstruction for an undisclosed sum and it is building a $3.4 billion casino a=d resort in the Bahamas. It also has a number of significant contracts in A=u Dhabi, 100 miles down the road from Dubai in the U.A.E. —Jason Chow contributed to this article. Sent from my iPh=ne 2 EFTA_R1_01759753 EFTA02582347