Which is going to be top GCC business city, Doha or Dubai?

Visitors to Dubai and Doha these days are amazed by what they see, and even more amazed by what they hear.

Dubai has more than $50 billion worth of real estate under development, and at least that much again in planning. As you fly into the city you see The Palm, Jumeirah from the air, plus the half-completed The Palm, Jebel Ali; and the beginning of The World islands; and even the huge The Palm, Deira. It is as though somebody was writing on the waters of the Gulf.

On touching down at the airport in Dubai you might notice the $4.2 billion airport expansion project; cross the Creek and point to the multi-billion dollar Dubai Festival City and the Dubai Healthcare City under construction; and as you head up the Sheikh Zayed highway the tallest building in the world is under construction to your left, with one of the world's biggest shopping malls at its feet.

Carry on towards the Dubai Marina district and you will see more than one hundred high-rise towers under construction at the same time, and a desert brought to life with a garden city of freehold villas; and even an indoor ski resort under construction.

Now Doha is not Dubai from a construction standpoint, although no less than 37 hotels will be built there over the next three years, and the whole city is also a construction site, albeit on a smaller scale. There is also the superb Qatar-Pearl project, a $2.5 billion land reclamation development of 8,000 upscale homes.

But over the next few years, Qatar will be spending $100 billion on infrastructure development, some $15 billion for construction projects, and the lion's share of $75 billion going into huge LNG projects.

By 2010-2012 Qatar will be the world's biggest producer of LNG. The impact on per capita income is going to be huge. Qatar already has the highest GDP per capita in the GCC of an estimated $38,000 a head for this year. Next year Qataris will be richer than Europe's highest earners the Swiss.

Thus it is not fair to compare Dubai and Doha - though many people say that Doha is like Dubai 10 years ago. For Dubai is emerging as a trading, services, finance, transport and leisure hub for the region, while Doha will be the LNG capital with excellent business services to support this sector, alongside its existing oil production.

Both cities will offer a very high standard of living to their expatriates and residents, and have imaginative development projects. They both also have great business potential for those with the necessary skills and expertise and will be boom cities for the next three to four years at least.