ADIH's $500m fund attracts good response

Dubai: Abu Dhabi Investment House (ADIH) said yesterday it has received commitments for half of the $500-million fund it has launched to build the $3-billion Qatar Entertainment City near Doha.

The money will be spent on developing infrastructure for the project, ADIH chief executive officer Rashad Janahi told Gulf News.

He said ADIH expects to receive contributions from Gulf investors for the rest of the fund soon.

Qatar Entertainment City will have five hotels, theme parks, shopping centres and residential buildings within the Lusail City development, to be built north of Doha on 35 square kilometers.

Lusail will house up to 200,000 people when completed in 2010.

Another key component of Lusail is Energy City that will house the Gulf's first mercantile exchange for energy.

Janahi said there is strong demand for Qatari properties among Gulf investors and his company wanted to tap that market.

"We want to diversify our investments and there is interest about Qatar among institutions and individual investors. Qatar is a promising market for us," he said.

Disneyland-type

ADIH yesterday signed a deal with Qatari Diar, the government-backed company behind Lusail, to acquire one million square metres of land for Entertainment City.

It will directly invest in property projects and also sell land to developers that want to join its project.

Michael Lawrence, director of real estate at ADIH, said the company's plan is not to create "Disneyland-type entertainment and set up plastic dinosaurs."