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2008-2010 UAE – Dubai archive
2007 UAE – Dubai archive
2006 UAE – Dubai archive
Pre-2003-2005 UAE – Dubai archive
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| 2007 Archive – UAE – Dubai |
Funding Dubai, global hub and post-modern corporate state
The Maktoum’s Dubai is a global success, providing a development model for the new millennium, but the Emirate’s finances remain opaque. GSN looks at the motors of Dubai’s emergence as a world player.
Issue 819, 7 December 2007. more
Also see, Issue 819: Some other Dubai investment players
Qualitative factors underpin Dubai’s investment strategy
A cocktail of factors have contributed to the effectiveness of Dubai’s investment strategy, ranging from the exploitation of cheap labour to an increasingly rigorous campaign to rid Dubai of dubious business practices, which started with action against revenue siphoning from public enterprises into private pockets.
Issue 819, 7 December 2007. more
Straight speaking the cost of a high visual profile for Dubai
That most PR-savvy of emirates, Dubai, got a bit more frankness than it bargained for when some of the world’s leading designers and architects attended a conference hosted by the emirate under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.
Issue 807, 8 June 2007. more
MBR follows other GCC rulers by building up the family business
A talented (in many cases), well-educated gilded elite of twenty-something Gulf royals is fast emerging to take sporting prizes and the top jobs (GSN 797/1). Their parents are justly proud and delighted by a trend that should help most Gulf Co-operation Council members to navigate the potentially tricky next phases of the region’s explosive growth and ‘modernisation’. And modernisers should rejoice that the next generation leadership has the international education and upbringing to function in a globalised world – and that so many of the next generation leaders are women. No one doubts that individuals like Qatar’s Sheikha Al-Mayyassa Bint Hamad Al-Thani, Bahrain’s Sheikha Hessa Bint Kalifa Al-Khalifa and several young Emiratis are exceptional players.
Issue 803, 13 April 2007. more
Dubai exceeds all expectations – and wants more
When Dubai Ruler and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) introduced the Dubai Strategic Plan (DSP) in February, media focus fell on the Emirate’s predictably staggering achievements to date and its ambitious plans for the next eight years. But the DSP goes beyond the predictable growth headlines, with MBR making two themes very clear: this is a plan for UAE nationals and for target-driven government.
Issue 802, 30 March 2007. more
Al-Maktoum camel jockey litigation continues
Motley Rice on 9 March continued their lawsuit against two senior members of Dubai’s ruling Al-Maktoum family in the US Southern District Court of Florida. The Mount Pleasant, South Carolina-based company – well known to GSN readers for its Saudi litigation efforts after the 9/11 attacks – filed a “memorandum of law in opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint.
Issue 801, 16 March 2007. more
Also see Issue 798, 2 February 2007. Motley Rice takes on the Dubai establishment over camel jockeys
Gulf financial centres: Companies flock to DIFC
Gulf governments still tend to say there is ‘no competition’, but this isn’t how it seems to the outside observer – and looking at who has already moved, or is planning to move, into the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain’s financial centres, Dubai appears to be leading at drawing in new players, according to the lists of incomers assembled by GSN.
Issue 799, 16 February 2007. more
Smuggling culture drives trafficking in Dubai
While outsiders often fixate on the role of Indian and Russian organised crime in Dubai – analysed in GSN 797, which found these outsiders’ influence might be overstated – it is local Emiratis who control the most lucrative rackets. As GSN reports below, the United States is among those becoming most concerned.
Also see Issue 798, 2 February 2007. more
Foreign mobsters, under pressure from Dubai crackdown, seek shelter from local partners
Between damning United States government reports and Dubai’s own lively rumour mill, the Gulf’s most thriving entrepôt would appear to be an uncontrollable crossroads of organised crime, where Russian and Indian mafiosi rub shoulders with smugglers of every commodity from weapons of mass destruction to camel jockeys and counterfeit Viagra. Critics might say that the United Arab Emirates government’s decision to set up an anti-organised crime bureau, announced in mid-January by Federal Ministry of Interior undersecretary Major General Saif Abdullah Al-Shaafar, was a welcome but belated recognition of this uncomfortable truth.
Issue 797, 19 January 2007. more
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| 2006 Archive – UAE – Dubai |
Dubai’s international investment build-up
Following its rebranding from The Investment Office to become Dubai Investment Group, and its inclusion under the Dubai Holding (DH) umbrella, DIG hit the headlines with its March 2005 $1bn deal to buy 21,000 rental apartments in the United States’ Sunbelt – the largest acquisition of apartment buildings in the USA for four years. DIG’s investment followed very public acquisitions of The Tussauds Group and a stake in DaimlerChrysler by fellow DH subsidiary and private equity vehicle Dubai International Capital (DIC).
Issue 790, 29 September 2006. more
Dubai oilfield takeover reinforces trend of government control
There was much speculation about the Dubai government’s decision to retake control of its three oil fields. The move said something about the global trend towards ‘resource nationalism’ but, more significantly, it pointed to leaderships’ desire to directly control key sectors of their economies and assets. This trend has often been overlooked by an outside world dazzled by Dubai’s pizzazz and the depth of Abu Dhabi’s pockets.
Issue 788-789, 15 September 2006. more
Who’s who: Profiles of key figures
Dubai Executive Council (DEC): an instrument of modernisation and control in the MBR era; Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem: Global image; Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum: ‘Mr Aviation’; Mohammed Al-Gergawi: High flyer; Sheikh Hasher Maktoum Juma Al-Maktoum: A player; Mohammed Ali Alabbar: Strategic thinking; Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum; Sheikh Maktoum Hasher; Ahmed Sharaf: A modern model executiveMaktoum: The A player.
Also see Issue 788-789, 15 September 2006. more
Property damage: Dubai’s real estate boom poses hard questions
Aspects of the relentlessly trumpeted Dubai property market deserve more attention than they have commanded so far. Far from contributing to sustainable growth, the real estate boom may have a negative impact on the stability of the federal economy.
UAE Central Bank governor Sultan Bin Nasser Al-Suwaidi concedes that the main driver of an inflation rate that is amongst the highest in the Gulf (see page 9) is the upward spiral in sale prices and rents – although also he insists that “By the end of the year, when new housing units come to the market, the situation will ease.”
Issue 788-789, 15 September 2006. more
Dubai’s new airport city: caution behind the headlines, but the gargantuan ambition remains
Sheikh Mohammed’s globalised city is trusting to its development model: massively ambitious real estate and transport projects catering for an international market, supported with aggressive marketing. Hard cash is only being committed in phases.
Issue 783, 9 June 2006. more
Dubai focus over nuclear fallout
The flurry of diplomatic activity between Iran and Gulf Co-operation Council governments reflects concerns that President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s nuclear standoff could seriously destabilise the region – economically as well as politically.
“Dubai has become the lungs of Iran,” a banker in Tehran told GSN. UAE Economy Minister Sheikha Lubna Al-Qasimi has been emphasising that “the inflow of foreign investments into the UAE has not been adversely affected by the recent tension over Iran’s nuclear programme.”
Issue 782, 26 May 2006. more
Dubai’s new property law leaves questions unanswered
As red ink swamped the bourse, Dubai finally issued its much awaited property law. It is a start towards normalising property ownership in this most abnormal city state – in a UAE property market where Abu Dhabi’s new leadership is trying to catch up, in its own way.
Issue 778, 24 March 2006. more
Dubai should be worrying about transparency not terrorism
Editorials in The New York Times, fulminations from Congress, amidst talk of legislative intervention and defiance from President George W Bush, who is determined to defend his administration’s decision to defend the deal. The takeover of P&O by DP World has leapt on to the American public agenda in a way few could have foreseen three months ago when the state-owned Dubai ports operator began to stalk the venerable British maritime transport conglomerate.
Issue 776, 24 February 2006. more
Trading gets under way at the DIFX, a key element in Dubai’s new financial pitch
In a competitive world arena, Dubai is seeking to push forward distinctive selling points. Independent regulation and commercial law bolsters credibility; but Dubai has to provide services the market needs and which were not previously available – that’s where the DIFX comes in.
Issue 776, 24 February 2006. more
MBR’s accession injects a new dynamic into Dubai/Abu Dhabi ties
It says something for the speed at which he works that Dubai’s new Ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum has already been nominated to the premiership of the United Arab Emirates, one of two federal posts held by his late brother, Sheikh Maktoum, who died suddenly in Australia on 4 January, from a heart attack according to initial reports.
Issue 773, 13 January 2006. more
2008-2010 UAE – Dubai archive
2007 UAE – Dubai archive
2006 UAE – Dubai archive
Pre-2003-2005 UAE – Dubai archive
Return to main GSN's World Dubai page
Return to main GSN's World UAE page
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