Eagle Hills, the Abu Dhabi-based developer chaired by Mohamed Alabbar, signed a $12 billion agreement in Dubai on Monday with the Maldivian government to build a large waterfront and marina community on Fushi Dhiggaru Lagoon, roughly a 17-minute speedboat ride from the capital, Malé.
The deal was signed in the presence of officials from both sides, including Abdulla Muththalib, the Maldives' Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development. The development will include international hotels and resorts, branded residences, a marina and waterfront promenades, retail and leisure facilities, and education and healthcare amenities. Units will be offered on leasehold terms of up to 99 years, renewable upon transfer.
Officials say the project is expected to generate more than 54,000 direct and indirect jobs once fully operational, draw over a million visitors annually at maturity, and contribute more than $2 billion a year in tourism revenue to the Maldivian economy. The site forms part of a wider Ras Malé urban expansion spanning over 1,100 hectares, where roughly 65,000 housing units are planned in total.
The agreement is the latest in a string of overseas mega-projects for Eagle Hills, which has previously delivered large-scale waterfront and mixed-use developments in Bosnia, Egypt, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Jordan. For the Maldives, the partnership adds to an existing pipeline of foreign investment in the archipelago, including an earlier financial-centre agreement with a separate international investor group.
Analysts note that signing the deal in Dubai underscores the emirate's growing role as a hub where large regional and international property partnerships are negotiated and finalised, even when the underlying projects sit thousands of kilometres away. For Eagle Hills, the Maldives project adds to a portfolio increasingly centred on tourism-driven waterfront communities designed to attract long-term foreign residents alongside holidaymakers.