Ramhan Island keeps foreign money in Abu Dhabi for years, not nights. Ras Malé can do the same

MALÉ — On a natural island off the coast of Abu Dhabi, two contractors hold contracts to build about 820 villas that are sold off-plan, before they exist. Buyers pay in instalments into project bank accounts that, under Abu Dhabi law, the developer cannot draw on until engineers certify that a fifth of the work is done, unless it lodges a bank guarantee. The island is Ramhan Island. The developer is Eagle Hills, the Abu Dhabi company that on 21 September 2026 agreed the principal commercial terms with the Government of Maldives for the Maldives Waterfront and Marina at Ras Malé.

Ramhan sells something the Maldives sells very little of: homes, not hotel nights. The difference is not only in what is sold, but in how long the money stays. A tourist's spending arrives with the visitor and leaves with the visitor, on average after about seven nights in the Maldives. A property buyer's money arrives before the building is finished. It stays in the country for as long as the home is held, and it is spent again every month by the owner or tenant who lives there. When the home is sold, the money moves again, and under the Ras Malé terms the State is paid each time.

Ramhan Island demonstrates three things, each with consequences for Ras Malé: property money arrives early, it stays longer, and a second market protects an economy when its first market weakens.

1. The money arrives before the building

Ramhan's villas are sold "off-plan", meaning before they are built. Buyers pay in stages during construction, and Abu Dhabi law controls where that money goes. Under Law No. 3 of 2015, amended in 2025, every off-plan project must have its own escrow account: a bank account held by an approved independent trustee. As the law firm King & Spalding explains, buyers' payments can be spent only on construction and completion, not on the land price or sales commissions, and nothing can be withdrawn until 20 percent of the works are certified complete. A developer with a record of on-time delivery can draw earlier only by lodging a bank guarantee worth at least a fifth of construction costs.

That money is already at work. In December 2024 the trade journal MEED reported two construction awards. Arabian Construction Company (ACC), a UAE firm, won an estimated AED2.5 billion, about US$680 million, for about 500 villas. The Egyptian group Hassan Allam won about 321 villas, covering complete works for phases 2 and 4. ACC's contract alone represents about AED5 million, or US$1.36 million, of construction work for each villa: wages, materials, engineering and local suppliers, paid for by a private developer and its buyers rather than by the government.

For the Maldives, this is the first carry-over benefit. The Chief Government Spokesperson, Mohamed Hussain Shareef, told Zawya Projects, as reported by Reuters, that the government will make no cash contribution to Ras Malé, take on no project debt, give no sovereign guarantee and grant no tax concessions. Sale receipts are expected to pass through Maldivian banks and escrow. Construction would be financed the way Ramhan's is: by the developer and its buyers, with sale receipts held inside the country's own banking system.

2. The money stays longer

A hotel guest pays for a room, meals and activities, and then leaves. A home owner, or a tenant renting from one, spends in the local economy every month: on groceries, schools, clinics, maintenance, transport and services.

The clearest measurement of that difference comes from CaixaBank Research, which studied foreign card payments in Spain in 2023. It separated foreigners with long-term ties to the country, such as second-home owners, seasonal renters and remote workers, from ordinary tourists. The long-stay group spent less per day, €35 against €64, but stayed 48 days against 2.8. Each long-stay card therefore spent €1,729, about 9.6 times the tourist's €180. Only 5 percent of long-stay spending went to hotels, against 27 percent for tourists, while 25 percent went to supermarkets, against 10 percent. The money went into the everyday economy, not only the hospitality trade.

A home that its owner does not live in earns a second stream: rent. In Abu Dhabi, apartment rents rose 16 percent and villa rents 10 percent over a year, the sharpest annual increases in a decade, Cushman & Wakefield reported in October 2024, linking the demand partly to residence permits for retirees and remote workers. In the first half of 2026, as conflict in the region disrupted travel, asking rents across the emirate stayed largely stable, with increases in prime communities, according to the property portal Bayut. Rents held while hotel occupancy fell.

Abu Dhabi attracts that capital from abroad. Data from the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC), reported by The National, show AED142 billion (US$38.66 billion) of property transactions in 2025, buyers from more than 100 countries and AED8.2 billion of foreign direct investment into property. An investor who owns property worth AED2 million qualifies for a 10-year Golden Visa, which gives buyers a reason to stay, not only to visit.

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For Ras Malé, each foreign-owned home would be foreign capital placed in the Maldives for as long as the owner holds it, with rent and household spending added on top, every month of the year.

3. A second market protects the first

The value of a second market shows when the first one weakens, and 2026 has provided a test. Airspace closures during the Middle East conflict cut hotel demand across the Gulf. CoStar data in a CBRE report, carried by Skift, show Abu Dhabi's hotel occupancy falling from 80.3 percent to 66.8 percent in the first half of the year, and revenue per available room, a measure that combines how full hotels are with what they charge, falling 20.3 percent.

Over the same six months, Abu Dhabi's property market grew. ADREC figures reported by The National record AED117 billion of transactions, up 112 percent on a year earlier, across 16,838 deals, up 61.7 percent.

Property is not immune to shocks. In Dubai, prices rose 2 to 6 percent over the year, but the number of sales fell 28.6 percent in the second quarter, according to JLL. The point is that the two markets respond to different things. Hotels depend on flights arriving this month. Property depends on long-term confidence in a place. An economy with both has two sources of income that do not fall at the same time.

Why the Maldives needs a second engine

The Maldives has built one of the world's most successful tourism economies, and its public finances now depend on it more each year. Tourism-related revenue was 36.6 percent of all government revenue and grants in 2017 and 46.9 percent in 2025, on Ministry of Finance data in the MMA statistics database. The World Bank's June 2026 update shows how exposed that leaves the economy: tourist arrivals were 5.4 percent lower than a year earlier by mid-May, after the conflict disrupted travel, and the Bank expects growth to slow to 0.7 percent this year, from 6.3 percent in 2025.

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Tourism income also moves with the seasons. National occupancy was 77.7 percent in February 2025 and 39.3 percent in June, according to MMA data.

The second market barely exists. In December 2025, banks had MVR4.47 billion lent to real estate, 9.3 percent of all their loans, against MVR14.29 billion, or 29.6 percent, to tourism, on MMA data.

Foreign capital is not what is missing. Net direct investment rose from US$441 million in 2020 to US$857 million in 2025, according to MMA balance of payments data. But bank credit is concentrated in the same place: outstanding bank loans for new resort development alone stood at MVR5.19 billion in December 2025, more than banks had lent to the entire real estate sector. What the Maldives lacks is a second place for capital to go.

What carries over to Ras Malé

The Ras Malé terms are built on the same principle as Ramhan: private capital builds the district, and the State is paid from it. According to the Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Dr Abdulla Muththalib, as set out by the Maldives Independent, the State will receive 10 percent of the master developer's revenue, a 4 percent levy on every property transaction and Tourism GST with no concessions. Zawya Projects reported that the 4 percent applies to resales as well as first sales. Eagle Hills will also build 5,000 three-bedroom homes in Hulhumalé, at a reported cost of US$400 million to US$500 million, paid upfront and recovered from the government's 10 percent share.

Because each sale or inheritance starts a new lease of up to 99 years, a mechanism GMM has examined separately, every resale renews the owner's title and pays the State again. The money does not leave after a week. It returns at each change of owner.

The government expects more than US$11 billion in State revenue over the life of the development and more than 54,000 jobs. No model behind those projections has been published. For scale, US$11 billion is about three times the country's external public debt of MVR55.4 billion, about US$3.6 billion, at the end of June 2026, as reported by Atoll Times.

What makes the model work

Ramhan's results rest on rules, and the same rules would decide the result at Ras Malé. The government says it is preparing a comprehensive real estate law. Including project escrow accounts, independent certification of construction and a public register of titles would give buyers the protection that Abu Dhabi's law gives Ramhan's, and would raise the standard for every developer in the country, Maldivian or foreign.

Two further conditions would widen the benefit. Maldivian banks would need to be able to lend against a renewable lease, so that Maldivian buyers can take part and not only buyers paying in cash from abroad. And construction, maintenance and service contracts could be divided into packages that Maldivian firms can win. The full agreement, the masterplan and the phasing have not yet been published, and Ramhan's own record so far is contracts and commitments, not finished homes.

The case that Ramhan Island makes is simple. Tourism brings money for a week. Property brings it before the building is finished, keeps it in the country for years and returns it at every sale. For an economy that draws almost half of its public revenue from a single trade, Ras Malé is an opportunity to build a second.