Kuwait Finance House (KFH) announced that it will participate today in the American Foreign Institution for Real Estate (AFIRE) annual meeting in New York, where the International Real Estate Manager at KFH Ali Al-Ghannam represents KFH in the board, to discuss the latest developments in the real estate markets around the world. Al-Ghannam explained that the organization was established in 1988 in Washington, and is considered the largest among the real estate unions around the world, where the representatives of the major corporations working in the real estate investment field attend this meeting with several key politicians from various countries. He added that the available opportunities are tackled in light of the current global crisis, and added that KFH’s membership in the organization is as a representative of the Middle East, which is rendered one of the most important decision makers in the real estate market, where KFH was elected during the last period. Moreover, Al-Ghannam stated that the organization aimed at the beginning for foreign real estate investors, but its efficiency in attracting many major corporations has made it include American real estate investors too, which made it cover all real estate investment lines in the world by maintaining a connection with them through the seasonal annual meeting in February and September, and also through the internet on .www.afire.org Furthermore, he announced that the organization predicted the crisis since 2006, which led to the liquidizing of most of the important funds by the corporations belonging to it, in order to achieve the best investments, in addition to protecting its shareholders and clients. This forced KFH to liquidize its Asian real estate fund, and other funds, such as the Swedish real estate and the British real estate, in order to detach from them and achieving best returns possible, which cemented the clients’ trust in KFH. On the other hand, regarding the effects of the global crisis, Al-Ghannam remarked that the real estate in major strategic cities has not been severely affected, but the companies that heavily used credit tools have been affected and paralyzed, since they cannot fulfill their commitments. He went on to say that the current crisis is not only related to the scarcity of liquidity, but to the lack of financing sources, due to lack of trust, especially after the negative effects revealed by the crisis. It is worth noting that Al-Ghannam, who graduated from Miami University in 1989, one of the young, promising men. He worked for Residence Public Authority, and then moved to the Kuwaiti Real Estate Investment Group. Later on, he copied his real estate experience that focused on developing countries, in addition to industrial countries, to KFH in 2002. He contributed through his department in establishing numerous real estate funds that included the States, Britain, Sweden, and Asia. His department is currently working on studying the global markets and the opportunities that might arise.