1.784879-127588789
An aerial view of Palm Jumeirah. Nakheel’s hospitality project portfolio comprises 10 hotels at various locations in Dubai Image Credit: Gulf News

Dubai: Nakheel, the property arm of the Dubai Government conglomerate Dubai World, has made payments of Dh4.6 billion to its trade creditors so far.

"Today's announcement marks significant progress in our recapitalisation plan, following on from the initial payments to trade creditors of Dh500,000 or less, which commenced in March 2010," said a Nakheel spokesperson in a statement.

The statement also announced that the property developer is expecting to finalise its restructuring before the end of first half of 2011.

The developer of the iconic man-made islands, Palm Jumeirah and The World announced its $10.9 billion restructuring plan to repay its trade creditors who represented 95 per cent of the debt in July last year. The proposal outlined that trade creditors would receive 40 per cent of the payment in cash and 60 per cent in the form of Islamic bond. Lenders include Barclays, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Dubai Islamic Bank.

This follows last week's announcement by Dubai World that it has finalised its $24.9 billion debt restructuring plan.

The plan which will take place in two phases states that $4.4 billion will be paid over five years in the first phase and $10.3 billion will be paid over eight years at a fixed interest rate of 2.4 per cent in the second phase.

The amount includes debt held by the banks while the remaining debt is held by the Dubai government.