The creation of the new Dubai Authority for Investment and Development this week is another milestone in the evolution of Dubai into an international trade and financial hub serving the Middle East.
The DAID is charged with attracting and promoting major investments into Dubai, an in particular pulling in the big international names with investment incentives. It is no surprise, therefore, that the two men who have successfully created the Dubai technology and media free zone are to run the DAID.
Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi and Saeed Al Muntafiq have been the bureaucrats responsible for turning General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's e-vision into reality. Now they are charged with a bigger task. But where is Sheikh Mohammed's ambition pointing now?
It seems clearly directed towards the financial sector. The DAID is designed to assist the newly announced Dubai International Finance Centre in attracting major financial institutions to Dubai.
For as Dubai's role as a trading hub expands, finance and services are the logical next step combined with tourism. This is the pattern followed by other regional trading hubs such as Hong Kong and Singapore on which the development of Dubai is often modeled.
By extending the same business friendly and open-minded approach that recently brought names such as MBC and CNN to the Dubai Media City, Dubai hopes to attract the giants of international finance, and the minnows as well.
Certainly the 20,000 bankers and VIPs that gather in Dubai for the IMF and World Bank conferences in September 2003 will be wooed with a vengeance. And many are beginning to conclude that low wage costs, attractive infrastructure, excellent communications, first-class transport options, and a business friendly climate, are worth a second look.
For the Middle East is changing and now moving into a new stage of modernization - with enormous business opportunities - and Dubai will be its business and financial hub.
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- Sunday, April 07 - 2002 at 11:29
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Peter J. CooperSunday, April 07 - 2002 at 11:29 UAE local time (GMT+4)
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