Mohamed Alabbar, the Emaar Properties founder and chairman, is setting up a non-profit institute to providing high-level training to senior managers and professionals in the real estate industry.
The institute will offer programmes that will cover theoretical and practical study of the property market and will draw on case studies from around the world.
Mr Alabbar, who wishes to use his professional knowledge and experience to mentor a new generation of leaders for the industry, will fully fund the institute.
The institute will also accommodate visiting professors from some of the world’s top universities and foreign property experts.
It will initially offer short-term training courses that cover a range of disciplines such as design, master planning, financial viability, marketing, managing customer relationships, and operating shopping malls and hospitality businesses.
Mr Alabbar said the UAE’s property market accounted for about 20 per cent of the country’s GDP and had developed an international reputation for offering investment opportunities.
“The centre aims to further elevate the UAE’s competitiveness globally by nurturing and developing a talent pool of highly skilled real estate professionals,” he said.
“I believe that it is imperative to share my experience, gained over the past 20 years, particularly in building globally renowned icons, with the next generation.”
Rob Jackson, Middle East director for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, welcomed the announcement of an institute for training property professionals, stating that there was “absolutely a need for this” in the region.
However, he added that key to any training would be to make sure that local case studies are incorporated alongside global standards and best practice, and that courses needed to be long enough to provide a proper standard of education.
“What we see in the region is a lot of courses that are very short. They seem to be more for awareness and don’t give the skills needed for people to go out and operate as they should.”vv
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