Chairman of Emirates Group, Sheikh Ahmed explains the Dubai World Central concept to Oxford Business Group

Sheikh Ahmed said: "The main reason behind building Dubai World Central which is centred around what will eventually be the world's largest airport - Al Maktoum International - is to support Dubai's aviation, tourism, commercial and logistics requirements until 2050. Also, the expansion of Dubai International Airport will still only facilitate 75m passengers, and in a few years when this airport reaches its maximum capacity we will need to accommodate more. We have named the airport Al Maktoum International to ensure that people realize there is still a connection with this city.

"When you look at Dubai and what has happened in the past five years, the amount of growth and the launch of large projects launched, the city needs and will need a lot of infrastructure and that is why we are focusing on the airports and the airlines to account for all of this growth.

"As Dubai continues to grow and expand in different ways, we also see potential not only from the GCC, but from the CIS countries and from the Indian sub-continent for people to send their children here to be educated. The schools that we have here and that are coming here have attracted a lot of people. The proximity of Dubai is closer to a lot of these countries than Europe and the United States.

"We always go hand in hand with the development of Dubai. We do not want to feel at any time that the city is expanding and the infrastructure is not ready."

Looking at the synergy between Emirates Airline Group, Dubai Aerospace (DAE) and DWC, Sheikh Ahmed said: "Between Emirates and DAE there are so many things that we can do together. Emirates and DAE are talking about putting up a University and a training college for pilots. Obviously, the natural place to start any of these enterprises will be DWC."

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