Footfall at the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) of 4.5 million visitors in previous years, is expected to have been matched in 2016, according to Laila Mohammed Suhail, CEO of Dubai Festival and Retail Establishment (DFRE), the entity that organises the DSF. Suhail added that the festival has historically generated annual sales of cAED15 billion in recent years and AED145 billion in total over the past two decades. Dubai retailers record 25-30% of their annual sales during DSF. This year the event saw over 6,000 participating retail outlets.   We view the news positively, as it gives further confidence in Dubai’s long-term retail story. We note that while footfall figures may not necessary directly impact Emaar Malls Group’s (EMG) reported figures positively, positive news inflow such as this may act as a trigger to the stock, on improved sentiment. We like the stock at the current valuation, with a PER of 16.8x for 2016e and 12.9x for 2017e, and EV/EBITDA at 14.5x and 11.9x, respectively. We believe EMG’s operations will be supported by the higher representation of base rent in total revenue, which gives lower sensitivity to changes in tenant sales. We expect the Fashion Avenue expansion to become operational in 2H2016, supporting double-digit revenue growth in 2016-17. We note that the revenue breakdown for the Dubai Mall extension will be more dominated by base rent, rather than turnover rent with lease contracts concluded at attractively high lease rates (of 30% of planned GLA having heads of terms signed). (Gulf Business, Mai Attia, Sara Boutros)