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A 32-year-old Dubai Golden Visa Awardee, Stalter has three professional wins including the 2020 Euram Bank Open and two Challenge Tour titles
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Dubai World may Pull Out of Malaysian Maritime Project
DUBAI — The Dubai government’s investment arm, Dubai World, is contemplating pulling out its stake in the 16 billion ringgit or $4.5 billion Malaysian maritime centre project with local infrastructure and utility firm MMC Corporation Bhd., as the global economic slump takes its toll on the government-run company’s projects abroad.
Dubai World and MMC signed a MoU in September 2007 to build a maritime complex in Johor, south of Malaysia, which would include an oil terminal, drydocks, a shipyard, cargo handling facilties, logistics parks and real estate projects. The schedule was to start construction in late 2007 and begin operations by 2010.
“As a consequence of the economic crisis that had negatively impacted the global community including Dubai, Dubai World is reassessing its priorities with respect to its investment allocation,” said MMC Corp. in a statement to the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange on August 18. Khaleej Times tried to contact Dubai World but no one was immediately available for comment. Dubai World is an investment company that manages and supervises a portfolio of businesses and projects for the Dubai government across a wide range of industry segments and projects that promote Dubai as a hub for commerce and trading. Dubai World’s withdrawal from the Malaysian maritime center project is the latest in a series of setbacks by the company, as it struggles to handle rising debts amid the global slump that has also slowed economic activity in the United Arab Emirates.
Last August 6, Dubai World said it has postponed multiple projects including some tourism developments in Africa worth $1.5 billion due to the global economic downturn.
The firm said it has delayed six of eight planned tourism developments in Rwanda worth $230 million first announced in October 2007. Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.
With no clear signs of a global economic turnaround, Dubai World is putting at bay, riskier investments overseas while it tries to rein in problems at home. The ports and property group faces challenges to revamp operations and finances before the end of the year when a $3.5 billion Islamic bond for its subsidiary Nakheel matures.
Nakheel has been hit hard by a near 50 per cent drop in property prices in the emirate. The company is also at the centre of unease over Dubai’s ability to repay billions of dollars in debt and is entangled in a growing number of disputes over unpaid bills to foreign contractors. Another unit, DP World, the world’s fourth largest container port operator, said earlier his year it was reviewing its expansion plans and freezing recruitment in face of a slow down in the container terminal industry caused by the global crisis. Last July, DP World said container handling volumes fell 10 per cent in the first half of this year across its network of ports worldwide.
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