By Shane McGinley www.arabianbusiness.com
Dubai’s Emaar Properties, developer of the Burj Khalifa tower, has awarded the Egyptian subsidiary of Arabtec a $36.8m contract at its project in the north of the African country, it was reported on Wednesday.
- Arabtec is the UAE’s largest builder by market value and also worked with Emaar on the development of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower (Image for illustrative purposes only)
Arabtec Egypt, a joint venture between Dubai-based builder Arabtec and Egypt’s Amer Group, won the 220 million Egyptian pound ($36.8m) contract to build 170 villas at Emaar’s Marassi project on Egypt’s northern coast, according to a report in by the Cairo-based Al Borsa newspaper.
Arabtec is the UAE’s largest builder by market value and also worked with Emaar on the development of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower.
The builder’s first-quarter profits slumped by about 80 percent year-on-year, as revenues dipped and work dried up in the UAE.
It currently has a backlog of projects worth around AED15bn ($4.08bn) in all of its markets by the end of the year, but it is increasingly looking to expand overseas to diversify away from Dubai’s once-booming property sector, which has been blighted by oversupply and a lack of demand, with developers slowing or cancelling projects.
It has won contracts worth AED356m ($96.92m) to build an underground car park in Abu Dhabi and residential villas in Egypt in January, and a $241m contract to build two colleges in Kuwait in February.
