Dubai Travel Guide

Leading UAE-based property development company, Durar (‘jewels’ in Arabic) Properties, unveiled its newest residential project in Dubai today, at a gala event held at the spectacular Mina A’ Salam last evening.

Durar 1, a twin-building development, is a joint venture between Durar Properties and Ali and Sons, and is ably supported by leading Saudi-based real estate and property investment groups, Zuhair Al Habib, Saleh Al Habib Investments and Al Mutawa Investments.

“The involvement from Saudi Arabia in this project highlights the growing interest of the global community in the local real estate industry, with the UAE real estate sector attracting SAR 30 billion of investments in 2007. Durar Properties remains at the forefront of this trend and we anticipate continued support from the Kingdom ensuring that we build on our initial successes and launch even more lucrative projects in 2009 and the coming years,” said Mohammed Miqdadi, General Manager, Durar Properties.
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Emirates has commenced a direct flight linking Dubai and China’s southern Guangzhou City, the country’s third largest air hub, the carrier’s Beijing office told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Flights EK362/3 currently run six times weekly, except on Friday.

Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, is Emirates’ fourth China destination, along with Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. It now has 48 weekly flights to the country.

Emirates flies the route with a modern A330-200 aircraft, in a two-class configuration offering 27 business class seats and 251 in economy class. It also has 13.6 tonnes of belly-hold cargo capacity.

The flight EK362 takes off from Dubai at 10:35 a.m. (local time) and arrives in Guangzhou at 10:20 p.m.. It then turns around as EK363 at 11:55 p.m. and arrives in Dubai at 3:40 a.m. the next day.

Xinhua

As Dubai gets ready to become the first Gulf city to introduce a rapid transit system, a debate is raging on the impact of leasing naming rights of metro stations to companies from across the world.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has placed advertisements in a number of prominent American and European magazines to invite bidders.

Officials are excited that Dubai Metro will be the first in the world to lease naming rights of stations and both Red and Green lines to companies.

But residents are not pleased. Many in the city believe that the identity of the city could be ruined by this exercise.