Yesterday in Dubai, the government signed a commercial terms agreement with Eagle Hills for the Maldives Waterfront and Marina at Rasmalé. It is the largest foreign investment programme in our history, and as expected of an undertaking of this scale, it has drawn some criticism and concerns. Many of the questions raised are fair and I want to answer them directly.
"The Maldives should not settle for an upfront payment"
I agree. And that is exactly how this agreement was negotiated.
Consider how the State actually earns from tourism today. The lump sums – lease acquisition costs and land rent – are not where the money is. Tourism land rent brought in MVR 1.88 billion in 2024 and MVR 2.07 billion in 2025. Tourism GST brought in roughly MVR 9.6 billion in 2024 alone – about five times the land rent – and over MVR 10,9 billion in 2025. Acquisition fees and lease extension fees arrive as one-off payments in the years they happen. The steady, growing income comes from the tax on activity: guests arriving, spending, and coming back.
This is the lesson we applied to Rasmalé. The State is not counting on a cheque at signing. Instead, this is what it will receive:
- TGST on every hotel stay, every meal, every shop and service in the development – the same taxes every resort pays, with no concessions.
- A 10 percent share of revenue from the master developer.
- 4 percent on every property transaction.
There is one more term that matters as much as any of these. Every sale receipt from the development will be held in an escrow account in the Maldives. For a country that has struggled with dollar availability for as long as I can remember, that is not a footnote. Also bear in mind that this in in addition to the dollar revenue government generates from the project.
At maturity, in roughly ten years, the project is expected to bring in not less than one million visitors a year. Over the project's development period, the State expects more than USD 11 billion in revenue, and the economy expects more than 54,000 jobs.
The government takes no loan, gives no sovereign guarantee, and grants no tax concessions. In addition to this, all project funds flow through Maldivian banks.
Jobs that let people live at home
Resort jobs come with its own rewards, but in return, they ask a great deal of families. A worker on a resort island lives away from spouses, children and parents for most of the year. Rasmalé, on the other hand, is just seventeen minutes from Malé by speedboat. A hotel, marina, school or clinic there offers a job a Maldivian live in Rasmale or in the greater Malé region can go home from at the end of every working day. For a country that has spent fifty years exporting its young people to resort islands, that is not a small thing.
"Stop Rasmalé and build housing in Hulhumalé instead"
Former President Abdulla Yameen has made this argument. My answer is that we are doing both.
As part of this agreement, Eagle Hills will build 5,000 three-bedroom homes in Hulhumalé for Maldivian families, at a cost of between USD 400 and 500 million, and it will fund them up front, before they earn from Rasmalé a single dollar. Not one dollar of debt is added to the government, and no sovereign guarantee is given. Because we agreed a 10 percent revenue share instead of an acquisition cost, the cost of these homes is deducted from the government's share of revenue as it comes in – not from the budget, and not from borrowing.
We chose housing, because housing is what people need most urgently and it is what helps families most directly.
Half of Rasmalé – 500 hectares – remains for locals only. Five hundred hectares can house a population of 150,000 or more. But a city of that size needs jobs and services within reach, or it becomes another dormitory. The other half of Rasmalé is what makes the local residential half viable.
Sovereignty is not on the table
Some have asked what selling homes to foreigners means for our sovereignty. The answer is: nothing changes.
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See the project (opens in a new window)There is no freehold. Maldivian laws and regulations apply at all times, everywhere in the development, exactly as they do in every resort. The government approves who may buy a property, and it retains full authority to issue a visa or to refuse one. There is no pathway – and there will never be a pathway – from owning a property to permanent residency or citizenship.
If the government cancels someone's visa, they leave the Maldives. Their property does not go with them in their checked luggage. It stays here, on Maldivian land, under Maldivian law, to be sold to another approved buyer.
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Open the tracker (opens in a new window)There is also no automatic revenue the developer can claim from the State. Some will remember the GMR airport agreement, under which the government was required to impose a development charge on every passenger and hand it to the concessionaire. There is nothing of that kind here. The developer earns from what it builds and sells; it earns nothing from the Treasury.
"A waste of public money"
Former President Mohamed Nasheed has called for major projects, including Rasmalé, to be halted. Most MDP leaders and MPs have said the reclamation is a waste of public money. I understand where the concern comes from, so let me be honest about the ground reality.
Over the years, successive governments have reclaimed hundreds of hectares of land across the country. Only a handful of those areas have full municipal services – roads, power, water, sewerage. The reason is simple: reclaiming land is the cheap part; servicing it is expensive. In today's economic situation, and with borrowing from abroad as difficult as it is, no government can build those services at the speed people want.
So, the real waste does not lie in reclamation. The real waste is reclaimed land that sits idle and empty for a decade because there is no economy to pay for what goes on top of it.
This agreement brings in the capital to build a working city, and it brings the tax base that lets the State to provide better services and opportunities for Maldivians.
Why this matters beyond Rasmalé
This government has repaid over USD 1 billion in foreign debt. But every global shock and every fuel price rise lands on the Treasury, because we choose to protect households from higher electricity, water and fuel bills. That is the right choice. It is also an expensive one, and we cannot keep making it on the revenue base we have.
Without real diversification and real revenue growth, any government – this one or the next – will struggle to meet the demands on public spending and bring debt down. A responsible government has to change that trajectory for the next generation: more revenue for the State, better-paying jobs, and business opportunities for Maldivians.
Dubai and Singapore did not become what they are because of what they collected at signing. They became what they are because of the economies those investments set in motion – the trade, the visitors, the businesses, the jobs, and the taxes on all of it, year after year. That is the model we have negotiated for: long-term sustainability, and economic and social benefit that compounds.
The road ahead
I understand the public skepticism about mega projects that are announced and never built. The Maldives has seen enough of those, and I have no wish to add to the list. But this is not a paper company. Eagle Hills and Mr. Alabbar have built Downtown Dubai, Belgrade Waterfront and destinations on three continents. They have the track record and the resources to match what has been announced – and you have seen Mr. Alabbar himself, one of the best-known figures in global real estate, on record. committing to deliver it. While I assure transparency in the process, I ask all Maldivians to give us their trust, and to allow us the time to show it in action.
The Maldives is at a crossroads. We can keep reclaiming land we cannot afford to service, or we can build an economy that pays for the services, the housing and the debt reduction that Maldivians are asking for.
Rasmalé is our answer to that question. The question is not whether to build it, but whether to build it well.
