Dubai shopping space to keep growing

Dubai: Shopping space in Dubai will continue to expand with its gross leasable area (GLA) estimated to post the highest increase in the GCC from 1.17 million square metres in 2006 to 425 million square metres by 2010.

Overall, the combined GLA in the region is expected to reach 16.35 million square metres by the end of the decade, according to the organisers of the Middle East Toy Fair, which will be held from March 31 to April 2 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Quoting a study, trade fair organiser Messe Frankfurt said shopping mall space in the Gulf has increased nearly 50 per cent each year for the last few years.

Investment

The company also noted there are current plans to spend over $26 billion on building new malls in the Arabian Gulf states over the next five years.

By 2010, Monica Schulz-Bank, Middle East Toy Fair show manager, said the region's GLA will post a whopping 565 per cent increase over 2000, which then stood at 2.46 million square metres.

Abu Dhabi's GLA is expected to rise from 574,000 square metres in 2006 to 1.4 million square metres by 2010, up 145 per cent.

Bahrain is set to record a 216 per cent increase as the shopping space in Manama expands to 600,000 square metres.

"This massive expansion in shopping malls in the Gulf, combined with an increasing population growing at six per cent annually, augurs well for the toy industry," Schulz-Bank said.

The Middle East toy market is said to be worth about $1.5 billion per year with a current growth of 11.8 per cent per annum.