The Capital of Dubai, Dubai International Financial Centre

The upcoming Dubai International Financial Centre will be officially launched on September 23 and the first tenants of this huge mixed-use development will move in on July 14, 2004.

Needless to say the launch of the DIFC is being timed to coincide with the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the city. But even the most hardened veteran of international finance will not fail to be impressed by the breath-taking plans for the DIFC.

As the world's first fully-integrated, green field financial centre the DIFC is aiming to get its planning right from the start. There will be 34,000 car parking spaces on four levels under the complex. Not only the largest car park in the world, but an essential feature in a city with limited public transport and very hot summers.

However, the whole aim is to create a city within a city, the 'Capital of Dubai' as it will be known. Only 20 per cent of floor space will be given over to banks, the rest will be for corporate offices, residential units, two hotels and every imaginable business service activity.

The first phase will be 100,000 square metres of space by 'The Gate', the translucent office-arch that will form the entrance to Dubai's most novel free zone. But this is merely a foretaste of the 1.2 million square metres of accommodation to be built over the next six-and-a-half years.

Within the walls of the DIFC companies will trade according to the commercial and civil laws established exclusively for the DIFC and drawn up by international lawyers to the highest global standards. Thus a unique legal and trading environment for financial services will be established.

Officials say a regional stock exchange managed by one of Europe's largest exchanges is under development. With an estimated 90 privatizations to come in the Middle East the DIFC hopes to be at the forefront of modernizing regional capital markets.

This business alone should prove a magnet to the giants of global finance, and the DIFC has pitched itself to attracting the biggest names in the global industry. It is not trying to copy Bahrain which is already a hub for regional banks and Islamic banking.

Nonetheless, the scale of development at the DIFC is mind-blowing and highly ambitious. The cautious bankers who assemble in Dubai this week may scratch their heads in disbelief and wonder if it will really be done.

They should be aware that Dubai has successfully grown its economy by 6% a year while seeing oil income fall from 50% of GDP in 1985 to 7% today. Against that sort of a background anything is possible, and the impossible is usually done at once.