Pakistan has given a Dubai property firm the go-ahead for a $43bn (£22.8bn) project to develop two island resorts.

Emaar Properties, one of the United Arab Emirates’ biggest property firms, will have an 85% share in the 13-year project to develop Bundal and Buddo.

Emaar plans to develop the site near Karachi into a model city with homes, apartments, offices and theme parks.

“It will be just like another Dubai,” Ashfaque Hasan Khan, an adviser to the prime minister said.

“We want to build it because it will create new jobs, bring in investment, create new housing and a new city,” he added.

Pakistan’s Port Qasim Authority will hold the remaining 15% stake in the enterprise in the form of land, the government said.

So far the plans have been approved in principle. Legal documents are expected to be completed within three months.

Emaar - the UAE’s biggest property firm by market value - plans to build thousands of homes, schools, shopping malls and hospitals stretching from Morocco to India.

Source: BBC

Related:

• Emaar Pakistan
• Emaar recharges Pakistani property market (AME Info)