Expo 2020 is approaching us and fast. Dubai’s win to host the first Expo in the country and in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region was first announced in 2013, and it is said to bring together a physical manifestation of ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, which is its main theme. However, there have been assumptions on its impact on real estate and positively influencing the country’s economic growth.
So the question is, what’s going to happen to the real estate market after the much- anticipated Expo 2020? CEO of fäm Properties Firas Al Msaddi’s reveals his thoughts.
“It’s not about the six months of the Expo. It’s not about a short win for the government of Dubai,” says Al Msaddi.
Al Msaddi says the “Expo is all about after the Expo” and is a means to an end, “to serve the period after the Expo”.
“Expo is to showcase Dubai as a world-class platform so we can attract more sustainable foreign investments and new residents to Dubai. That’s the only way I look at the Expo”.
He also mentions that Dubai is different compared to the vast majority of cities in the world “mainly because the city of Dubai is being built now as we speak”.
“Just a rational view, I think the government like the government of Dubai that managed to build what they’ve built in Dubai so far in just a couple of decades to bring the city from scratch to a world-class city that we can see today.”
Al Msaddi adds that it evidently can be seen today wherever in Dubai and there’s enough evidence to tell where the city is going in the next 5 years.
“It makes no sense not to give them the benefit of the doubt and to say that definitely they're smart and they're not doing this to win this six months, because there's no ROI on the investment involved in the Expo.”
“There’s no ROI if the return on investment is only for six months,” he concludes.
The Expo 2020 is expected to take place between 20 October 2020 and 10 April 2021 in the Dubai South district, near the Al Maktoum International Airport.
You can tune in and learn from Mr. Firas Al Msaddi on his YouTube channel, ‘Straight Property Talk With Firas Al Msaddi’