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Damac announces Kurdistan project……by ..Nathalie Gillet
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Hussain Sajwani
Hussain Sajwani, the Damac chairman, said the investment climate in Kurdistan bodes well for major projects like Tarin Hills. Paulo Vecina / The National
Attracted by the offer of free land and relative political stability, Damac Properties yesterday announced it will build a US$55 billion (Dh18.3bn) mixed-use development in the northern Iraq region of Kurdistan. Tarin Hills, to be located 18km from Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil, will be the largest development the country has ever seen. It would also be the second-largest project for Damac, which was now involved in its seventh Middle Eastern country, said Hussain Sajwani, the chairman of the Dubai-based developer. “We found that Kurdistan was one of the easiest places in the region to work with,” said Mr Sajwani. “We found a big co-operation with the government when it came to regulation, location, investment.” Damac will build 8,000 units across 15.79 million square metres at Tarin Hills. When the third phase is complete, a decade from now, the development will house 50,000 people in a variety of accommodations including Mediterranean-style villas, townhouses and apartments. Plans also call for 1,000 offices, business and county lodge hotels, retail outlets, entertainment and health components, a spa and an 18-hole golf course. The development will also offer major security coverage, including fences, checkpoints, high-technology screening at the entrance gates and around the clock security patrols. Kurdistan has been advertised by its regional government as “the other Iraq” in recent years, with its five million people experiencing limited violence, in part because of its sectarian and political homogeneity. Shared oil revenues have allowed the region to start its reconstruction and development programmes well before Iraq’s other, volatile regions. Last year, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) passed an investment law that offers generous incentives to outside investors, including tax and customs duty exemptions, repatriation and partnerships. Giving land is one of these incentives, meaning Damac will build on land it received for free.
The provision of free land would be the only financial involvement by the KRG, said Herish Muharam Muhamad, the chairman of the regional board of investment. It would be up to Damac to secure
infrastructure, he added. Development in Kurdistan is managed and financed by the regional government, which has been doing all it can to attract foreign investment. “The federal system is something new in the country and it takes time to understand the regional and federal rights,” said Nechirvan Barzani, who has been the regional government’s prime minister since he was elected in January 2006. “As for us, we encourage free market and private sector, and foreigners and Iraqi people can buy freehold properties in all Kurdistan,” he said. The region would issue visas that could be extended as long as people wanted to stay, regardless of their nationality, said Mr Barzani. Despite those measures, Mr Sajwani acknowledged it would not be easy to attract foreigners to the development.
“The main challenge will be to find a way to convince non-Iraqis,” he said. “The Iraqis know their country
.” Damac will be the only developer involved in Tarin Hills, which will be designed by Dar el Handasa, an engineering company based in Bahrain. There are 40,000 housing units already underway in Kurdistan. They include the American Village, which is being built by a US-based Sigma, and is already 60 per cent complete. “Right now, some units there have already been sold at $500,000,” Mr Muhamad said. Other projects have been launched by German, Italian, Turkish, Iranian and UAE developers. Last February, the UAE-based Bonyan International Investment Group announced a partnership with Al Hanthal Group, the Kurdistan-based developer, to develop a smaller residential project – about one million square metres – in Sulaimaniya.
The region also signed a contract with Ben Khaled Group, another UAE developer last November to build warehouses on 200,000 square metres. “About 25,000 units are being built by Iraqi individuals,” Mr Muhamad said
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