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Ayala Land plans affordable flats for Filipinos in the UAE

Ayala Land, the real estate arm of the Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp, has been conducting ocular visits to Filipino homes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi since Saturday to draw up exploratory talks with the UAE business partners and plans to build affordable decent accommodations for Filipino expatriates in the UAE.

Ayala Land team headed by its President and CEO, Antonio Aquino, came here from Singapore where it also sealed its first Asian offshore office, aiming to tap the growing interest there in overseas property investments. Aquino said that from the UAE, the group will proceed to UK then to USA where many migrant Filipinos live.

He said that for the next three years, Ayala Land will set up these affordable decent accommodations in the UAE after the exploratory talks with the UAE business partners and approval by the authorities.

According to Aquino, Ayala Land has been offering a wide-scale portfolio with all types of properties, ranging from high-end to affordable houses in the Philippines nationwide. Ayala Land sealed one of the largest deal in the history of privatisation of Philippine government assets involving the purchase of Food Terminal Inc (FTI). FTI is the sprawling 74-hectare parcel of agro-industrial government property in Taguig City that fetched a P24.3 billion price.

Ayala Land also invested P15 billion on Atria Park District in Iloilo, a province in eastern Visayas south of Manila. This project is expected to draw 10,000 jobs during its construction phase.

Before flying to Dubai on Saturday Aquino did a more aggressive push in Singapore, which saw Singaporeans comprising 40 per cent of the investors in Philippine real estate projects that day.

Ayala Land started in Makati City, the riches commercial district in the Philippines, and has been behind big projects in the country, including the Bonifacio Global City, Cebu Park District, Abreza in Davao, Centrio in Cagayan de Oro, and its newly-opened project in the Visayas, which is the District Northpoint in Negros Oriental.

• lily@khaleejtimes.com