CAIRO: Solidere International, a real estate firm part owned by Lebanon s Solidere, is eyeing land in Saudi Arabia and Montenegro, and aims to sell projects to investors in 2010, its executive director said. Investors are eager to put money into real estate as stock markets fluctuate and interest rates stay low, Mounib Hammoud told Reuters in Cairo at the launch of a project with Egypt s Sixth of October Development and Investment (SODIC). Capital is there, he said. If you package good real estate opportunities with solid names like Solidere and SODIC, based on wealth studies and wealth structures, I think you will be able to place them very easily. Next year... we could be able to sell down, at a premium, a number of the companies that we have established for specific projects, he said, adding it was too early to say which companies. Hammoud said he saw opportunities to buy land in Lebanon, Egypt, Montenegro and Saudi Arabia, where he said there was a good chance to sell apartments to a large, young population. There s a need for a million apartments in Saudi Arabia today, he said. There are lots of plots, very interesting plots of land in Riyadh and Jeddah. He said he expects Lebanese land prices to rise through 2010 as a stable government heightens the appeal of the country as a destination for tourism, medical services, banking and other services. The market today is digesting the latest price hikes, and I think in the coming year you will see more increase in prices, he said. In Lebanon, real estate gets sick, it sleeps, and then it wakes up. It never goes down, never. Hammoud s company has reduced the size and aim of its Al Zorah project in the Ajman emirate of the United Arab Emirates and wants to target tourists with it, he said. The original plan called for the construction of a $60 billion city to be built, as a joint venture with Ajman s government, on reclaimed land a 25 minute drive from Dubai s airport. We have changed completely the strategy on the project. We have reduced its size to a manageable size, he said. Although it was a city, now we re trying to create a tourist entertainment destination to exploit the natural beauty of the site. Solidere International is still working on the project s infrastructure, but the development would take longer than the original 15 years planned to complete it, he said.
