Dubai Travel Guide

Air India launched the first international commercial flights from Srinagar in Indian Kashmir on Saturday, a move it is hoped will boost tourism in the troubled Himalayan territory.

State-run Air India will operate weekly flights between the insurgency-hit city and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Previously the only international flights out of Srinagar were charter planes to take Kashmiri Muslims to Saudi Arabia during the Haj season.

Kashmir was a major tourist destination before 1989, when a dozen Islamic rebel groups kicked off an insurgency demanding Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. The conflict has killed more than 68,000 people, mostly civilians.
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Emaar Properties PSJC, the Middle East’s largest home builder, Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of 1.77 billion United Arab Emirates dirhams ($482 million) because of a U.S. write-down, and the company put new projects in Dubai on hold amid a property slump in the emirate.

Before the write-down, fourth-quarter net profit was 924 million dirhams, compared with a profit of 1.74 billion dirhams a year earlier, the company said in an emailed statement to Zawya Dow Jones.

Full-year profit dropped 54% to 3.06 billion dirhams from 6.58 billion dirhams a year earlier. Revenue declined 10% to 16.02 billion dirhams, Emaar said.

Emaar wrote down 1.77 billion dirhams in goodwill in its John Laing Homes unit amid the financial crisis, and a further 919 million dirhams in properties owned by the company during the quarter. Emaar, which is about 30%-owned by Dubai’s ruling Maktoum family, bought John Laing Homes, one of the largest home builders in the U.S., for $1.05 billion in 2006 in an effort to diversify its business from Middle East real estate.
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Emaar Properties PJSC, the Dubai-based property developer that reported a fourth-quarter loss of $481 million, has put new real-estate projects on hold as it restricts the supply of new homes amid falling prices.

Emaar has “put new projects and launches on hold to assist in reducing the real estate property supply in Dubai,” the United Arab Emirates’ largest developer said yesterday. “The new launches in 2009 will be dependent on the review of the demand and supply situation at various income segment levels.”

The global credit crunch and a drop in real-estate prices in the country have led to job cuts, lowering demand for real estate as expatriates leave the country. The number of residents leaving Dubai leapt by 86 percent in January, the Dubai Naturalization and Residency Department said Feb. 10.
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