By Andy Sambridge  www.constructionweekonline.com

Retail sales at The Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall, rose by 24% during 2012 compared to the previous year, developer Emaar said on Saturday.

The company also said the mall received a total of 65m visitors last year, an increase of more than 20% on the 54m visitors seen in 2011.

Emaar said that the total number of visitors to the mall surpassed the annual number of tourists to to New York City (52m) and Los Angeles (41m).

Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties, said: “The visitor footfall to The Dubai Mall has exceeded our expectations every year since its opening in 2008, and in 2012, we marked another landmark by welcoming 65 million visitors.