During the first 8 years of the new century real estate development projects undertaken across the Middle East surpassed the two trillion US dollar mark. Vast leisure and tourism developments, retail shopping parks and mega-malls, mixed-use developments, healthcare and rehabilitation centers, technology and media zones, industrial parks, schools and universities, luxury residential complexes, free zones, financial centers and sports cities are transforming the cityscapes in almost every country in the Middle East.

There was a building boom on a scale that dwarfs the developments of the 1970s and ’80s. Whereas the first real estate boom, fuelled by the historic oil price hikes of the 1970s, focused on basic infrastructure, the new developments have been diverse, sophisticated and often implemented with a close cooperation between local government and the private sector.

As with the rest of the world, the Middle East was hit hard by the global recession, which resulted in the delay or cancellation of many major development projects across the region. Some economies have seen the value of their real estate investments plummet, while others have seen a continued growth and development of the real estate sector. Despite the headlines, there is still an impressive level of development in the region. Now that the dust has settled there is an ever greater need for developers and governments to explain their projects clearly and effectively to their justifiably jittery stakeholders.

We have served some of the region’s largest and most ambitious real estate developments, carrying out launches of retail shopping parks, mixed use and residential developments and specialist cities, developing crisis protocols and crisis management programs, internal communications procedures, corporate imaging and messaging. Our Real Estate Development Practice includes financial and business writers, luxury specialists and real estate analysts.

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