Top developer plans world's tallest building, and has put up the first six of more than 100 envisaged 40-storey towers DUBAI Mohamed Ali Alabbar has a fear of heights. The chairman of Emaar, Dubai's leading developer, says he is kept awake at night by the sheer size of the Burj Dubai, the desert skyscraper he is planning that will dwarf Chicago's Sears Tower.

To allay any fears, he has what he calls "200 Phds" working on wind patterns, earthquake resistance and other problems that may be encountered when housing thousands of people in a building intended to pierce the sky like a needle.

Putting up the world's tallest building is a breathtaking endeavour, especially when not many miles away Emaar has erected the first six of what it hopes will be more than 100 40storey towers housing about 45000 people.

The $10bn project, around a marina that extends uncomfortably close to a power station, is likened by local estate agents to a ritzy recreation of Nice.

But if Alabbar has worries about the technical tripwires he has to cross, it does not appear to diminish his ambition.

"I just want to put my little home town on the map," says Alabbar.

At first glance such a yearning to build more, higher and faster is rather like the riddle that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al- Maktoum, Dubai's crown prince, set Arabic speakers as a poetic challenge last year almost unfathomable.

Neither economists nor estate agents can work out how the crown prince, who scrutinises projects in detail, can fine-tune the process to avoid a massive oversupply of stylish apartments even when the best are selling at no more than £250 a square foot, a third of their equivalent price in central London.

"It's very hard to get these things spot on. We are in danger of seeing overinvestment in Dubai property just as in 2000 you had overinvestment in US information technology," says Daniel Hanna, economist at Standard Chartered in Dubai.

Indeed, next door to Emaar's Burj (which means tower), is the crown prince's personal flagship, Dubai International Financial Centre, an exchange intended to bridge the time zone between Hong Kong and London.

The centre will have office space, apartments, cooled walkways between buildings and a transit system around the perimeter.

Yet none of these projects is adjacent to the Arabian Gulf and so are not marketed to the sunlovers usually associated with Dubai. These projects are aimed at young urban professionals.

Their goal is to establish Dubai as the Singapore of the Middle East, much as Emirates, Dubai's airline, has become a match for Singapore Airlines in terms of class and efficiency.

This is a bold plan and, at least, has timing on its side.

Dubai's aim of becoming a business and financial hub in the region is helped by the billions of dollars of Arab money that have been withdrawn from the US since September 11 2001.

According to property developers, many of the new apartment buildings in Dubai are already in the hands of Iranians, Kuwaitis, and people from neighbouring emirates starved of investment opportunities at home.

Pakistanis are also among the big buyers.

Shelina Malik-Junego, a Pakistani estate agent hoping to sell properties by private developer Damac, becomes upset when she discusses the difficulties that her fellow nationals face when trying to gain entry to the US.

"It is becoming next to impossible," she laments.

Dubai, on the other hand, "is one of the few places Pakistanis are welcomed.

It is an area that we trust. This is where we get our connecting flights, and where a lot of people have offshore accounts."

Such countries are the primary targets for many real estate developers in Dubai.

By offering tax-free internet and media clusters, a regional banking centre, an airline hub and world-class medical facilities and Dubai hopes to attract enough professional money to fill its buildings.

The push comes just as some estate agents say the appetite in Europe for Dubai property has peaked and it may not be a coincidence.

Alabbar has told Emaar executives to cut the marketing budget in parts of western Europe and focus on the Arab world.

There are some who worry that such marketing is an elaborate confidence

trick: by announcing ever more spectacular plans, Dubai maintains the illusion of success just long enough to get investors to sign on the dotted line.

Doubts are heightened by the complex legal limbo surrounding property in Dubai, not to mention the difficulties under Islamic law of acquiring mortgages, or evicting tenants who refuse to pay their rent.

But such doubts hardly do justice to the massive physical transformation of Dubai over the past 30 years, which is plain to see.

Nor do they do justice to the prestige the ruling al-Maktoum family appears to have staked on the success of modernisation.

To make the point, Peter Riddoch, CE of Damac, bangs his fist on the window ledge as he points out of his office window at the massive entrance building that is the first part of the Dubai International Financial Centre to be built.

"That's not smoke and mirrors. That's concrete," he says.

Mar 17 2004 07:36:07:000AM Henry Tricks Business Day 1st Edition