UAE economy is expected to grow in the fourth quarter of this year, Economy Minister Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri said on Sunday. “The UAE has emerged from the most difficult phase of the crisis with minimal losses. Our key indicators show that economic growth will be back on track by the last quarter of 2009 and start of 2010,” he said. Earlier this year, Al-Mansouri said he expected the UAE economy to grow in the second half of this year. The Gulf region has been hard-hit by a drop in oil prices to the mid-$30 range earlier this year after prices peaked at nearly $150 a barrel last summer. Gulf countries invested heavily during a six-year oil price rally to try to wean their economies away from a reliance on oil export revenues, but most are still vulnerable to price volatility. Meanwhile, mortgage lending in the UAE rose by 25 percent in the second quarter of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008, : HSBC said in a recent report. “The growth in Q2 over Q1 is more than 25 percent. As price expectations between sellers and buyers are converging, there are more transactions happening both for property sales and mortgages,” said Venkatesh Srikantan, regional head of Assets and Liabilities, HSBC Middle East. “There is an increase in demand especially from end-users who missed the earlier property booms and are now happy to purchase property at these price levels,” Srikantan added. Separately, developers of the proposed $5.5 billion Awali City in Ajman will drastically revise the real estate project after property buyers defaulted on their payments in the economic downturn, a UAE daily reported on Monday. Awali Real Estate Investments could reduce the project's size to half than originally planned, it said. “There are 136 plots of land and all had been sold at the time of launch. Most of our investors have stopped paying us for the past eight to nine months,” Amal Amir, the company's sales and marketing manager, said. Following Dubai's real estate boom, the smaller emirate of Ajman had announced several property developments and sold land to developers. With the credit crunch hitting the property sector the hardest, many projects across the UAE are being delayed and cancelled. - Agencies Meawhile, the UAE has surpassed Saudi Arabia as America's biggest export market in the MENA region, US Ambassador to the UAE Richard Olson told delegates at the reception hosted by the American Business Council of Dubai and the Northern Emirates recently. He added that Dubai would lead the region out of the economic slump. US exports to the UAE in 2000 amounted to $2.2billion, but had soared to over $15.7 billion in 2008. “Defense, machinery, autos and even horses make up a large part of this trade, but this does not fully account for services such as legal and consulting,” he said. The reception, held at the Al Murooj Rotana Hotel, attracted over 100 senior executives from leading US firms including GE, Morgan Stanley, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and FedEx among others. Also present were representatives of regional companies Afridi & Angell, Bateel, DNATA and Tatweer. “Times are significantly challenging, but GCC countries are best positioned to recover from the credit crunch and the UAE will be at the forefront leading that recovery,” Olson added.
