The Dubai Magic (2)

Dubai's Remarkable Economic Transformation
The Dubai Magic (1)

Shanghai has the skyscrapers and the highways and the metro of New York City. In fact, it has surpassed NYC on all of those fronts, perhaps. Shanghai has a bullet train, NYC does not. But Shanghai does not have NYC's cultural diversity. That is where Dubai has surpassed even NYC. More than 80% of the residents in Dubai are from outside. That is quite a ratio. Not only that, it is a major tourist destination.

When you step inside a bank, it feels different from the street you were walking on. All of Dubai feels like one big bank. The architecture of the city is breathtaking. Dubai is ready for take-off. It can be home to the next generation of financial services. If the current crop of financial services are computers, the next generation of financial services are as different as the Internet has been from pre-Internet computers. We are talking of something fundamentally different.

I intend to play a role.

Dubai's the Very Model of a Modern Mideast Economy Saudi Arabia is trying to reduce its dependence on oil. A neighbor has already done it......... For more than 100 years, the Middle East has been defined by oil exploration, production and its boundaries. Now the region is getting repurposed by its aspiration to grow beyond fossil fuel. The shake-up in Saudi Arabia's royal family was as much about becoming a 21st-century economy as it was about rooting out corruption. ........

None of the region's petrostates has moved further from its oilfield roots than Dubai, which has been diversifying its economy since the 1970s.

The result is a thriving gateway to globalization with a superior economic outlook. .......... The most populous of the seven United Arab Emirates and home to more than 200 nationalities .......

Situated within eight flying hours of two-thirds of the world's population, Dubai has the region's busiest international airport

measured in total passengers and fourth-largest airline based on revenue per passenger kilometer....... The relentless commitment to infrastructure development turned Dubai into the Mideast hub for finance, information technology, real estate, shipping and even flowers........

Oil production, which once accounted for 50 percent of Dubai's gross domestic product, contributes less than 1 percent to GDP today.

........... Energy officials in 2016 said renewable energy will account for 25 percent of the emirate's needs in 12 years. Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, a year ago said that the renewable percentage will rise to 44 percent by 2050. ......... Even as oil prices declined 50 percent in 2014, construction continued unabated for Expo 2020, which aims to showcase "opportunity, mobility and sustainability" with a specific focus on education, financial capital, logistics, natural ecosystems and biodiversity, among other themes. .......... With oil down 37 percent since 2013, the Dubai stock market is up 155 percent and real estate firms are 135 percent more valuable ........ Since 2003, the seven companies that make up the real estate and construction sector of the index produced a 789 percent total return (income plus appreciation), beating the benchmark's 417 percent as well as the 250 percent return for the 242-member Bloomberg World Real Estate Index. No other market in the Persian Gulf comes close to replicating the performance of Dubai real estate. .......... Dubai now is poised to be the growth leader among the six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council, with GDP expanding 3 percent or more this year and in 2019