| Gulf Arabs cast cautious eye on N.Africa property |
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Gulf Arab developers continue to position themselves in North Africa to tap growing demand for real estate, but companies will be more cautious in expanding there after the global economic crisis.
"I definitely see expansion continuing but it will be rationalised and focused as opposed to 'let's go out there as fast as we can'," Jalil Mekouar, head of Middle East and Africa at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, told Reuters at the Cityscape property exhibition in Dubai this week. Developers such as Qatar's Barwa Real Estate, which in August announced a $9 billion Cairo project, are targeting the region to help offset troubles closer to home, and to tap a region that lacks an appropriate infrastructure to serve a large, rapidly growing population. Property prices, which have fallen some 50 percent from their peaks last year, are forecast to shed a further 10 per cent in 2009 and have a 20 percent chance of picking up before 2011, a Reuters poll showed.
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