United Arab Emirates president and Abu Dhabi ruler President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan recently announced that he is to spend $4.4 billion on the infrastructure system across the Emirates. This investment, it is hoped, will enable the country's support systems to keep pace with its mushrooming property developments.

Projects funded by the multi-billion-dollar sum will include new intercity highways to make travel easier, as well as storm-water and sewerage systems in the more northern Emirates, such as Ajman, Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah. A large amount of funding has already gone into improving the infrastructure of the capital, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai.

Despite the increased competition from other Emirates and neighbouring countries such as Bahrain and Qatar – which hopes to muscle in on Dubai's Sports City with its own nation-building sports blueprint – Dubai still attracts the biggest British investments in the region.

Figures just released from the Dubai Land Department reveal that 147 Britons own land in the Emirate totalling 1.9 million square foot – making Brits the biggest foreign landowners in Dubai.

For those interested in property on land that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, could ruin a good walk, Al Hamra Village, in Ras Al Khaimah, offers a wide range of apartments and villas amidst an 18-hole golf course. Properties are available through Barton Wyatt and prices range from £61,000 to £405,000.  

Alternatively, Barton Wyatt is currently marketing two- to five-bedroom villas available in the golf resort of Riffa Views, Bahrain, priced from £260,000 to £1,800,000.

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Article first published 17 April 2008