Duqm Development Company (DDC) is a real estate firm that was set up to develop and manage the Frontier Town residential and commercial zone in Duqm. It is jointly owned by the local shipyard arm of South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Company (DSME) and the state-owned Oman Tourism Development Company (Omran).

DDC is looking [at] other potential sites where it could develop residential, industrial or tourism resort projects

Frontier Town is a residential area of 183 hectares, located in the Al-Wusta region on the southeast coast approximately 550 kilometres from both Muscat and Salalah. The Omani government, keen to spread economic development across the country, decided this region should be a major new centre of economic activity, focused largely on export business.

The development of the area includes a new town, a dry-dock business, an industrial zone, an airport and a seaport. DDC is the pioneer developer of the residential district in the region’s main town, Duqm.

Residential units

In 2009, the company embarked on phase one of the frontier town, comprising housing for the staff of the dry-dock. The project, budgeted at RO37m ($96m) and covering 23.4 hectares, aimed to create a new community, providing a range of accommodation including villas and apartment buildings to suit different employees, and a club house.

Overseen by local consultants Triad Oman and GEO Resources, construction was entrusted to a joint venture of the local Bahwan Contracting Company and South Korea’s DSME Construction. Work began in 2010, with the first of the 344 residential units becoming available for lease in 2012.

The second phase covers an adjacent 29.2 hectares and encompasses luxury housing and family-oriented community facilities as well as commercial space. Work has begun on a feasibility study, prior to the drafting of a detailed masterplan for the site.

DDC aims to build up a strong investment base and increased earnings and profitability so it can move on to other plans and projects in Oman’s growing real estate sector. The company is looking beyond the Frontier Town project to other potential sites where it could develop residential, industrial or tourism resort projects.

The successful completion of a project at the relatively remote Duqm site may equip it to take on more projects in outlying provincial locations where other developers might be cautious. But the business foundation of the Frontier Town scheme has been its close link to the new port and industrial complex being developed by one of the main shareholders in DDC; other potential project sites might not offer this level of underpinning economic security.