Giuliana Napolitano
São Paulo – A billion dollar project is being studied in the United Arab Emirates, and may count on Brazilian company participation. The enterprise to be built in Aiman emirate, will be called Amber Islands, a group of islands that will include hotels, houses, shopping centres, leisure complexes, and even hospitals. "It will be a true city," said businessman Nabil Saliba Tarazi, a director at Cathay Consortium, the company coordinating the project together with the local government.
According to Tarazi, forecasted investment is US$ 27 billion. "We can buy around US$ 10 billion from Brazilian companies," estimated the executive. He recalled that Brazil is "very competitive" in various sectors of interest to the Cathay project, among them furniture, decorations, construction material, machinery and equipment, transport vehicles, paper, food, cosmetics, and textile products (such as bed, table, and shower products for hotels). "We also need engineering services. We should get in contact with 6,000 workers for these constructions," he explains.
The interest in Brazil is due to economic reasons – high quality and low prices, according to Tarazi -, but also to his origin: he is Lebanese, naturalized Brazilian and has a company in Brazil, Tarazzi Comércio Exterior, a trading company with offices in Florianópolis (in southern Brazil) and Abu Dhabi, where he currently lives.
The project is in the moulds of Palm Island, the billion-dollar enterprise already in construction in Dubai. The Palm Island archipelago will include over 2,000 houses, 50 hotels, shopping malls, cinemas, and other leisure options.
104-floor hotel
The Amber Island project is divided in two phases, according to Tarazi. The first includes the construction of hotels, sports complexes, (such as a golf resort, and a tennis club), marinas, medical spas, shopping centres, convention centres, restaurants and snack bars, theatres, and services (such as banks and post offices).
In the second phase, the residential part will be closed (houses and apartments), as well as offices and business centres. "We want to build a 104 storey hotel, to be the largest in the world," says Tarazi.
Construction is expected to begin this year and should be complete by 2009, according to the executive. The project is currently in the investment collection phase. Aiman government intends to invest funds, according to Tarazi, but the company is also after private investors. Cathay is already selling real estate funds for the enterprise, informed the director.
International tourism
Apart from Amber Island, there are at least four other tourist projects being developed in Aiman, informed the Aiman Chamber of Commerce and Industry economic development consultant, Zuheir Amin, to ANBA. One of them is the local government construction of an international airport in the emirate.
"We already have the land and approval by the authorities responsible should take place in the near future," he declared. According to Amin, the airport should cost around US$ 500 million. He added that the government intention is to work together with private companies.
The executive also said that "in the near future the chamber intends to receive proposals from domestic and international businesses for construction of the tourist enterprise" on the Aiman coast. "We intend to transform an excellent area of around 100 million square meters, with a three kilometre coast, including three mangroves, lagoons, and forest into an international tourist destination," he explained.
There are even proposals for the construction of a hotel and apartment complex and an enterprise that would include a shopping centre, flat service, office buildings, hospital, and leisure installations, with gyms and cinemas, in a 750,000 square meter area.
Contact
Aiman Chamber of Commerce and Industry
www.ajcci.co.ae
Nabil Tarazi
tarazzitrading@hotmail.com
