Changing face

Changing face

The UAE, particularly Dubai, is cleaning up its image. We list five measures it has recently undertaken.

April 6, 2009 12:13 by Aarti Nagraj

1. The UAE Ministry of Economy has announced that it plans to create a court to protect consumers, reports The National. However, the ministry has not released any details of how the proposed consumer court will function.

2. Earlier this month, Dubai appointed London-based public relations group Finsbury to handle its financial communications, even as it struggled to ward off increasing negative reports from the international media.

3. After Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) rubbished a list of cancelled projects in the emirate that was doing the rounds, and promised to publish an accurate list of its own. Sources at Rera have confirmed to Kipp that the list will be published by April 16.

4. The Dubai Land department announced on Sunday that it plans to amend Article 11 of Law 13, which deals with off-plan property contracts in the city. Though officials have not elaborated on what the changes will be, it will inform investors their rights if they plan on cancelling their contracts with their developers.

5. The Dubai Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) in March announced that it will carry out inspections of all the schools in the emirate and categorize them as “outstanding”, “good”, “acceptable” and “unsatisfactory”. Subsequently, outstanding schools can increase their fees by 15 percent; good and acceptable schools can increase fees by 12 and 9 percent respectively, while unsatisfactory schools can increase fees by just 7 percent.

The Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau has already finished the first round of assessments rating 69 schools, out of which four were “outstanding”, 25 “good”, 34 “acceptable” and six “unsatisfactory”.