May this year the ruler of the little Gulf enclave of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, announced to applause at the World Economic Forum in Jordan that he was making a $10bn donation to set up an educational foundation in the Middle East, to improve the standard of education and research in the region. It was one of the largest charitable donations in the history of the world, and it made newspaper front pages around the globe. It was yet another ‘Dubai superlative,’ to go with a string of others, from ‘World’s Tallest Building’ to ‘World’s Biggest Golf Green.’ Like everything else that puts Dubai into the newspapers, the Sheikh’s donation is part of an effort to use oil wealth to create a sustainable future for Dubai itself, for the United Arab Emirates of which it is a part and for the Middle East as a whole. In Dubai’s case, the time when the oil runs out is not far away: when oil was first struck in 1966 it was known that, unlike Abu Dhabi next door, reserves would run out just 30 or so years after drilling started. Almost from that moment the ruling Maktoum family decided that this bonus from the sands would be invested as wisely as possible, to ensure that when the wells ran dry the sheikdom did not revert back to what it had been in the past, a dusty principality centred on the Dubai creek with nothing much happening except pearl fishing and shipping. Dubai’s great advantage, apart from its oil wealth, is its position between Europe and the East, with comparatively easy access to travellers from the EU, from India, from South East Asia, Japan and Australia. This was recognised as long ago as the 1870s, when Britain, which took a special interest in the Gulf area because of its proximity to the trade route to India, declared Dubai its main port in the area. One of the first projects the Maktoum family undertook after the discovery of oil was the building of Port Rashid, which, upon it completion in 1972, was the largest deep-water harbour in the world. The port was complemented a few years later with the building of the port of Jebel Ali, the world’s largest man-made harbour and the biggest port in the Middle East.
View of the future
However, trade is now only a small part of the Dubai economy. Instead the Maktoum family’s plan is to replace oil income with income from ‘knowledge,’ in its widest sense, and, above all, tourism. Earlier this year Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid declared that his intention was to make his emirate “a pioneering global city” that would be “free of the direct influence of oil price fluctuations.” To that end the country has invested in excess of $100bn on new projects. In 1975, oil revenues made up 64 percent of Dubai’s GDP. By 2010 the plan is for 25 percent of the economy to be devoted to the knowledge economy, encompassing everything from education and media to biotechnology, and 70 percent from tourism, with just five percent from oil and gas. By 2015, the intention is to have increased GDP from its current $31,000 a head to $44,000, a thumping 11 percent annual growth rate.
One of the main tools in promoting Dubai as a technological centre has been the establishment of ‘free-zones’ that allow companies setting up in them 100 percent repatriation of profits, 100 percent tax-free operations (including no income tax), special customs exemptions and fast-track visa services, as well as other benefits such as a single window for government services, long-term leases and easy company incorporation. The result is a staggering list of projects involving organisations and companies from all over the world. Dubai Internet City, which has been combined with Dubai Media City under the banner of Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority (TECOM), for example, is home to such world-class companies as Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Nokia, Siemens and Hewlett-Packard, and media organisations including CNN, Reuters, AP. In one of the most recent developments, The Times and Sunday Times of London began printing daily editions in Dubai for distribution in the region. Dubai Media City also includes Dubai Studio City, due for completion this year, which will include eight ‘boutique’ studios, three giant sound stages, a 15-storey tower and a retail area. It is looking to attract the complete spectrum of movie-making service companies, including production and post-production facilities, animation studios, dubbing, makeup and costume designing specialists, stage designing and building, and even casting agencies. Another part of the TECOM free-zone houses Dubai Knowledge Village, a one kilometre-long campus designed to attract universities, colleges, training centres and the like. Since it opened in 2003, Dubai Knowledge Village has brought in more than 300 ‘partners,’ including Heriott-Watt University, and Middlesex University from Britain, Mahatma Gandhi University from India, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the University of Wollongong from Australia, the University of New Brunswick from Canada and Saint-Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics from Florida in the United States. Dubiotech, more properly the Dubai Biotechnology and Research Park, is a vast technology park devoted to research in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors due to open early in 2008. Already, at the last count, 22 companies have signed up to take space in the park, including, according to reports, three of the top five global biotech groups with another 15 companies going through the process of being licensed. Another project due to open in 2008 is the $1.8bn Dubai Health Care City, which will have 17 hospitals covering everything from plastic surgery to sports medicine. It will include a teaching hospital and post-graduate medical training centre affiliated with Harvard Medical School. A host of private property developments are also under way, including Dubai Festival City, a $2.5bn, 1,600-acre project on the north-east side of the Dubai Creek which includes two million square feet of retail, 19,000 residences, offices and hotels, and a marina and Meydan City, another marina development, which is next to Meydan Racecourse, due to open in 2010. The racecourse development also includes conference facilities to add to the considerable slice of the world’s conference and exhibition business Dubai hopes to grab.
Tourism growth
Tourism is Dubai’s biggest hope for a revenue earner, however, and the main project in Sheikh Mohammed’s plan to attract 15 million tourists a year by 2010 (up from 6.5 million in 2006) to the emirate is Dubailand, a $20m leisure ‘city’ covering more than 100 square miles, twice the size of all of the Disneyland/DisneyWorld resorts put together, and divided into six ‘theme worlds.’ The first phase opens in 2008, with the final completion date not due until some time between 2015 and 2018. Much of the funding is coming from Dubai’s government through Dubai Holdings, its holding company, but at least $6bn will be private investment money. When finished, Dubai-land will have 45 ‘megaprojects’ and 200 sub-projects, including, to cover just a tiny selection, Kids City; Auction World; Women’s World; Eco-Tourism World; a 500-acre zoo; a huge snowdome,; a dinosaur theme park being developed with the Natural History Museum in the UK, and the Dubai Autodrome. Visitors will be housed in 31 hotels totalling nearly 30,000 rooms. Among the tourism projects designed to bring in -high net-worth’ visitors, the best-known is ‘the World,’ a huge manmade archipelago of 300 islands in the shape of a world map currently being built off the coast of Dubai. It is one of a series of artificial island projects in the emirate, along with the Palm Islands, developments in the shape of huge palm trees. Each island in ‘the World’ will be six to 21 acres in size (23,000 to 84,000 square metres), with 50 to 100 yards of water between islands. Prices per island will range from $15m to $45m. There is also the Burj Al Arab hotel, which boats of being the world’s first ‘seven-star’ hotel, and which has an iconic sail-like shape that has become as emblematic of Dubai as the Taj Mahal is or India or the Eiffel Tower is of France (replicas of both of which can be found in Dubaiworld). Tourism today includes shopping, and Dubai currently has a dozen shopping malls open, with two more giant projects due to be completed in the next couple of years. The most spectacular, currently, is the Mall of the Emirates, which, as well as the usual mall attractions, including a 14-screen cinema, a video gaming area and all the big-name stores from Bulgari to Yves Saint Laurent, also contains the Middle East’s first indoor ski slope, Ski Dubai, which has, naturally, one of the largest indoor ski slopes in the world. The Emirates mall’s dominance will be challenged over the next couple of years, however, when two even larger malls open, the Dubai Mall, which will cover 50 acres and 1,000 stores, and will include an Olympic-sized ice skating rink; and Mall of Arabia, being built as part of City of Arabia in Dubailand, with a planned 10 million square feet of shopping space.
Sporting attractions
Sport has not been forgotten. There are golf courses designed by professionals such as Colin Momtgomerie and Ernie Els, an equestrian and polo centre, and Dubai Sports City, another section of Dubailand, which will be the main plank in Dubai’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. The first part of Sports City is due to open later this year, and when completed it will include a 60,000-seat outdoor stadium for athletics, football, and rugby; a 25,000 seat cricket ground; a 10,000-seat indoor arena, and a 5,000-seat hockey stadium. Cricket and hockey are not big sports in the Middle East – but they are in India and Pakistan, two places from where Dubai hopes to attract many visitors. All this building, which includes infrastructure projects such as the Dubai Metro and the Palm monorail service, and a planned 9,000-megawatts power plant that will also produce 600 million gallons a day of desalinated water, together with projects elsewhere in the emirates, means that the UAE is reckoned to be home currently to almost a quarter of the world’s 125,000 construction cranes, with some estimates saying Dubai alone has 18 percent of the world total – more than 22,000 cranes. With $300bn of active projects, the UAE as a whole has a market for construction machinery estimated at over $500m, with growth of 15 to 20 percent forecast for the next five years. Passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport has rocketed from 7.1 million in 1995 to an estimated 29 million in 2006. A third terminal is now being built, which will enable the airport to handle 70 million passengers a year. This, however, is not regarded as enough: a new airport, Dubai World Central International airport, costing $8.2bn, is due to open its first stage this year, and will eventually be able to handle more than 100 million passengers a year. It may seem, like much else in Dubai staggeringly ambitious, but the little principality seems to have borrowed for its unofficial motto the words of the Kevin Costner movie: ‘If You Build It, They Will Come.’
Records
The Burj al-Arab (Tower of Arabia), 321 metres (1,053 ft) tall, and totalling 60 floors, designed to look like the sales of an Arabian dhow, is the tallest hotel building in the world. It is said to be the world’s most expensive hotel, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $28,000 a night. The Burj Dubai, due for completion in 2008, is designed to be the tallest building in the world: fear of competition from rivals means no final height has been released, but it will certainly be over 700 metres (2,275 feet) and possibly as high as 1,000 metres or more, with more than 200 floors. It will have the world’s fastest lifts, travelling at 65 km/h, or 40 mph. The base of the tower will house a luxury hotel designed by Giorgio Armani, with flats and then offices on top. A two-bedroom apartment on the 73rd floor sold recently for $1.5m. The Mall of the Emirates, with 2.4 million square feet of shops, is the largest shopping mall in the Middle East and the 19th largest in the world. It will be overtaken in late 2008 or early 2009 by the Dubai Mall, and then the Mall of Arabia, both currently under construction, which will, in succession, take the title of World’s Largest Mall at nine million square feet and 10 million square feet of retail space respectively. The Jumeirah Palm development is the world’s largest man-made island. The Asia-Asia hotel in Dubailand, when completed, will have 6,500 rooms, making it the world’s largest hotel. The par-three 13th hole at the Montgomerie Golf Course, in the Emirates Hills development, has the largest single green in the world. Dubai World Central International Airport will have a passenger handling capacity when completed of more than 120 million, more than the world’s currently busiest airport, Atlanta, in the United States, which in 2005 handled 84.8 million people.
