IMF, World Bank meetings highlight UAE achievements

Last year the GDP of the UAE reached $71 billion, and will be higher in 2003, bringing a per capita GDP of $19,128. One in 67 people is reckoned to be a US dollar millionaire.

This is reflection of huge oil wealth. The country sits on 10% of the world's proven oil reserves and will be an oil producer for the next two centuries. However, only 27% of GDP comes from oil.

For the UAE has succeeded in diversifying its economy in a way only dreamed about by many energy-rich nations. Dubai, in particular, has led the way in developing a vibrant trading hub, now combined with a large tourism sector and dynamic real estate sector.

This city is in the grip of a major economic boom right now. Government-led free zones and other real estate projects have ballooned in the past three years. And parts of the emirate are a huge construction site.

Upcoming projects include, two Palm Islands offshore, 60-70 high-rise towers at Dubai Marina, The Mall of the Emirates, Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre, Dubai International Financial Centre, the world's tallest building, Dubai Festival City, an underground third terminal for Dubai airport, Dubai Healthcare City, many more hotels, villas for freehold sale, The Gardens Shopping Mall and township, as well as extensions to many existing landmarks such as the BurJuman shopping mall.

All these projects are under construction at the same time, and it could be that during the IMF and World Bank meetings a few more are announced.

Elsewhere in the UAE economic expansion is notable but on a more modest scale than the massive investment in Dubai's infrastructure being masterminded by Dubai Crown Prince General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Even the most hardened and cynical international banker can not fail to be impressed by development on this scale. It resembles Shanghai in the late 1990s. And nowhere else in the world is undergoing this sort of a transformation at the moment.

For the UAE this type of construction boom has not been seen since the 1970s and the oil boom that created the modern infrastructure of the UAE.

It is a good thing that the visitors to the IMF and World Bank meetings will learn, first-hand, what is going on in this young nation. For the UAE is now blossoming into a regional hub for the Middle East, a role once played by Switzerland in Europe and by Hong Kong and Singapore in Asia.