Dubai's stock market crashes

Dubai's stock market crashes

Dubai's stock market crashes
(Image credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Shares in Dubai's stock exchange fell 6.7 percent today, down to 4,009.01, on news that Arabtec, the United Arab Emirates' largest building firm, was laying off workers. Arabtec is known for its wildly ambitious construction projects, including the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, and more recently a plan announced in 2012 to build a complex that includes the world's largest mall and 100 hotels.

Dubai has been in something of a boom in the last couple of years. Since June 2012, shares in Dubai climbed 250 percent and real estate prices have shot up a world-leading 27.7 percent in the last year. Dubai's government tried to cool the boom by restricting mortgages to 60 percent of a property's price, but rather than steadying growth this appears to have backfired. Dubai's markets have now been falling for the last couple of months, leaving them down 25 percent from their May peak.

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John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.