Al Furjan restart "under review" says Arabtec CFO

Arabtec's CFO Ziad Makhzoumi

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Construction work on Nakheel’s Al Furjan project has still not restarted, a senior official from Arabtec, the main contractor on the site, has confirmed.

“The timing of the project including its time line for completion is being reviewed at the moment but no official commitment has been given yet,” Arabtec CFO Ziad Makhzoumi told Arabian Business.

“We believe that this is one of the projects that Nakheel will complete and we are hopeful that it will be continued soon.”

Nakheel, the property arm of Dubai World, had earmarked the 1,500 villa Al Furjan site as one of six projects that it had prioritised for completion.

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Arabtec was awarded the $953m deal to build Al Furjan in Dubai's Jebel Ali district in June 2008, but halted work in January this year due to non-payment of arrears.

However, as part of the Dubai World debt restructuring process, Nakheel was able to pay Arabtec an undisclosed sum, amounting to around 40 percent of what the developer owed the contractor, at the beginning of July.

“We have not officially resumed the work but then again we never left the site,” Makhzoumi added.

“The timing of the project including its time line for completion is being reviewed at the moment but no official commitment has been given yet.”

Arabtec’s second-quarter results, announced last week, showed that the firm’s profits had slipped by 40 percent year-on-year.

However, in the same week, the firm also signed a $680m deal to build the La Hoya Bay project in Ras Al Khaimah and is actively searching for contracts in Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Angola.