Top realty exhibition opens today

Dubai: Thousands of real estate developers, brokers, landscape architects, designers, engineers, contractors and suppliers would gather to benefit from hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects at the Cityscape Dubai - the biggest event of its kind in the region - that opens today at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre.

This year, the three-day event has a floor area of 70,000 square metres and will host the largest ever number of investors, owners and developers in the booming Middle East multi-trillion dollar property industry.

Rohan Marwaha, group director of Cityscape organisers IIR Middle East, said: "With the region's economies continuing to run large budget surpluses and numerous world-class developments under construction or just off the drawing board, Cityscape is the most eagerly anticipated property event of the year."

Participants

This year, Cityscape Dubai is set to welcome more than 45,000 real estate professionals and investors from more than 120 countries, making it not only the biggest but the most diverse real estate platform in the world. "Cityscape is a true business-to-business event attracting institutional investors interested in projects around the world - and by institutional investors we mean those prepared to invest over $5 million," said Marwaha. "The event attracts the truly big real estate institutions, banks, investments companies and funds."

Primarily Due to the Dubai show's success, Cityscape is now one of the most valuable and recognisable brands in the industry and has contributed to the launch of sister events around the world. Last May, Cityscape Abu Dhabi witnessed a successful launch with over 15,000 participants from 71 countries.

Subsequently, Cityscape Asia and Cityscape China have also become leading platforms for their respective markets and the latest editions are Cityscape India in November and City-scape South America which is planned for December.

Since its 2002 inception, it only took Cityscape Dubai five years to become the biggest business-to-business real estate event with 50,000 square metres and 32,442 real estate professionals and investors from 107 countries.

Breaking records

Last year's event also broke records even before it began with announcements of $160 billion worth of real estate projects - a seven-fold increase on the $20 billion announced before the previous Cityscape.

Cityscape Dubai also features the World Architectural Congress and the coveted Cityscape Architectural Review Awards. The congress brings together leading international architects to discuss best practice in architectural design in the Middle East and internationally.

Architecture in emerging markets will be honoured at the Cityscape Architectural Review Awards which will take place on the opening evening of the show. Some 350 entries from emerging countries around the world will compete for the awards, which are recognised as the most prestigious of their kind in the region.