UAE’s Midein Group in landmark urban housing push

Sri Lanka is moving for one of the biggest ever urban housing infrastructure projects-in partnership with well-known Middle Eastern multinational famed for mega developments. “We warmly welcome you to Sri Lanka and your planned project here shall be a strong contributor towards our urban housing and infrastructure development vision” said Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion Faiszer Musthapa on 4 July.

Deputy Minister Musthapa was addressing Omair S Al Dhaheri, Chairman of Midein Holding LLC, the Abu Dhabi based large scale Real Estate and City-Scape development entity which has a Middle Eastern (only) project portfolio that exceeds $ 3 billion.

Among Midein Holding’s other operations are the US (luxury villas), Costa Rica (18000 unit project) and Haiti (10000 unit housing project).

“We have received a very encouraging welcome in Sri Lanka. In partnership with Overseas Private Investment Corporation of US, we are planning to enter Sri Lanka initially in urban housing sector. We are mostly interested in bigger housing projects that take above 10000 housing units per project. The model we want to employ here depends on the needs of the government of Sri Lanka but we are capable at our end, in terms of financing, tech transfer and technical capacity” said a keen Al Dhaheri, who was accompanied by Luciano Giangiordano, the Director of his sister firm Green Technologies.

“We can handle up to 25000 housing units, specially low cost, per project” Al Dhaheri added, and said: “We are ready to establish a Factory also so that necessary panels could be manufactured readily for the proposed housing project, possibly with an initial investment of $ one million only for factory equipment but it could be a maximum of $ 10 mn as the case may be.

This factory operation alone – apart from the construction of housing units-will generate skilled employment for Sri Lankans and bring the much needed new tech transfer in house construction field, to the country.

“We are also able to accommodate the proposed housing project into another model-creating high-rises that can go up-to no less than 15 stories.”

“We are ready to set up and start the supplies factory within four months of entry. We are also ready to introduce new tech solar energy panels to these constructions as and when necessary.”