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Dubai Investments eyes regional expansion

The group's managing director and CEO, Khalid Kalban, yesterday said the bulk of the project would come from a development contract with one of the UAE emirates.

He added that DIRC and its subsidiary companies Al Mujama Real Estate and QDI Sport Management Co. are the fastest growing firms among DI group's 44 companies due to the booming construction sector.

DI's property companies including manufacturers of building materials such as aluminium and glass contributed hugely to the group's business growth because of the "appreciation of the value of property".

The group announced on Monday a consolidated income, which jumped 77 per cent to Dh1.77 for the first-half of the year from Dh1 billion posted during a year-ago level. The net profit rose 48 per cent to Dh803 million from Dh544 million for the same quoted periods.

Kalban said the DIRC growth is one of the various expansions that some of the DI subsidiary companies are embarking on.

Dubai Investments Industries (DII), the group's company that invests in start-ups, is going into joint venture projects with a steel fabrication company in Abu Dhabi and another in Fujairah which manufactures boards for homes and ceiling tiles, among others. It is also having expansion programmes in three of its existing subsidiary firms.

Kalban also said that Dubai Investments Park (DIP), the group's unique, multifaceted complex of industrial, business, residential and recreational developments, now has 1,000 tenants. To illustrate the spread of development at DIP, he pointed out that the Green community alone, which is counted as one tenant, has 2,000 residential tenants. He said the community would have some 20,000 people in three years' time.

He said DI's Dubai Investments Financial Services Co., which recently bought five per cent of Islamic Bank of Asia, in Singapore, for Dh100 million, would embark on major investment projects in banks in the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei after three years.