The southern African nation of Angola plays hosts to the 2010 African Nations Cup football championship. The competition, which is called CAN2010 in Africa, will be the first major sporting event to be hosted by Angola and is spurring millions of dollars in construction and investment in the country. The tournament will take place from January 10 – 31, 2010 and four new stadiums are being constructed...
The Pound has today given up its recent gains following the Bank of England’s quarterly inflation report and accompanying speech by Mervyn King. The Bank’s downbeat picture of the economic outlook has sent shockwaves through markets, after a few days of positive data had given the Pound a welcome boost and prompted speculation about the beginning of a recovery for UK plc. King confirmed that...
The number of visitors to Dubai from the UK fell by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2009, according to the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). The UK is the emirate’s largest source of visitors. The number of visitors from both the UK and Ireland fell to 195,000 for the first quarter of the year, from 210,000 for the same period in 2008. The fall was reported by Ian Scott, the...
Luxury hotel chain Mandarin Oriental Hotel has just announced plans for a new five-star, 250-room development in Moscow. The hotel is to be located in the heart of the city on Tverskaya Road and will use a historic, 19th century building as part of the property. It will retain two historic facades as well as several original rooms on the ground floor. The new Moscow property will have a unique design...
The Sailortown area of Belfast, which has traditionally been home to a community of dock workers, is in need of redevelopment and the city is looking to prepare a masterplan for the area. The Department for Social Development and the Strategic Investment Board are working on plans for a new mixed-use development of the area. GVA Grimley, a leading UK property consultancy, has been appointed to prepare a...
In the midst of the worldwide economic slowdown, two popular Caribbean destinations are looking for ways to entice potential buyers to their little slice of paradise. The islands are easing restrictions on foreign buyers by lowering tariffs and taxes, making it easier to buy and improving critical infrastructure in attempts to lure more overseas investors. The British Virgin Islands is easing...
A new 38-floor skyscraper planned for London has won approval from the City to proceed. Rafael Viñoly’s tower has often been referred to as “the Walkie Talkie” because its shape is curved and it has a rounded crown, much like a child’s toy walkie talkie. In its plans for the building, developer Land Securities said there will a sky garden on top of it, which it called the “highest accessible...
The Vietnamese government has recently approved a master plan that envisions the country having 10 international airports in the coming decade. The plan, which was created by the Ministry of Transport, calls for several existing airports to be expanded and for several new facilities to be constructed. No Bai International Airport in Hanoi will be upgraded into a major international facility that will be...
New data released by the Spanish government shows that UK residents are the largest international buyers of property in Spain. While it has long been known that Brits love to buy in Spain, the data suggest that buyers from the UK are even more prevalent than many analysts previously thought. British citizens accounted for 57.6 percent of the buyers from Europe who came from outside Spain in 2008. That...
The number of travelers visiting Prague is down for the first quarter of 2009, according to statistics released from CTK and other sources. The decline is in line with the global economic crisis, and shows that first quarter traffic at the airport is down 18 percent compared to the first quarter in 2008. For the first quarter, the Prague-Ruzyne (PRG) airport had 2.07 million passengers. In all of 2008,...