Dubai: The pace at which Dubai brings about change has propelled it to the top tier of emerging cities, according to a comprehensive report issued by real estate consultancy JLL.
Dubai ranks third behind Shanghai and Beijing as the most globalised among emerging cities, while the city is ahead of the likes of Mumbai and Moscow.
“Dubai occupies a unique niche on the world stage … The emirate combines many characteristics of both established and emerging cities thanks to its meteoric and unprecedented rise,” the report titled ‘New World of Cities: Global City Index’ notes.
The findings are of significance in that these would be the benchmarks global investors use to commit funds in commercial real estate opportunities. In fact, Dubai shares its status in offering a higher quality environment with the likes of Santiago, Bengaluru and Shenzhen.
Mumbai, Manila and Jakarta have been deemed as having high potential but weakly governed. There are also the laggards, with Dhaka, Lagos and Karachi being vested with the unfortunate status.
‘Santiago and Dubai are important investment gateways in emerging regions,” the report notes. “There is a strong correlation between the index performance of ‘Emerging World Cities’ and the capacity they have to invest in their growth.
“Chinese cities have had comparatively wide opportunities, while cities with weaker fiscal tools such as Cairo and Mexico City have struggled. Given that infrastructure investments in emerging cities need to be in the range of 4-6 per cent of urban GDP by 2025 — around $20 billion (Dh73.46 billion) annually in a city like Istanbul — they urgently need independent financing mechanisms.’
And emerging cities will have to compete for investments against the ‘Big Six’, the ‘super cities’ of London, New York, Paris and Tokyo (as defined by JLL’s Commercial Attraction Index) and, more recently, joined by Hong Kong and Singapore. These cities account for 22 per cent of the overall global real estate investment flow, based on the period between Q3-2012 to Q2-2015.
