globalEDGE Blog - By Tag: united-arab-emirates

The flash of Dubai has captivated the world for the past decade.  But thoughts of skyscrapers built on sand with borrowed cash rather than a concrete future has been incepted into the minds of the world.  The opulent structures have created a city within a city – an oasis surrounded by relative poverty.  Consequences of such lifestyles and myopic philosophies are not latent in nature; they may be apparent tomorrow, next year, and even for the next generation.  While the world outlook for 2013 is positive in many ways, it would be arrogant to assume all liabilities will be paid by the end of this year.

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Dubai was always seen as the future and had unimaginable developments throughout the emirate. After tough economic times Dubai had temporarily stopped many of its large glamorous projects. Why is it then that Nigeria has invested US$52.2 million into the emirate’s property market in the first six months of this year? Without ever stepping out of Dubai airport Central Bank of Nigeria official, Osita Nwanisobi, was convinced to buy a flat in Dubai. He believes Dubai is a guaranteed return on investment and sees it as a world center.

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For centuries, Dubai has served as a key crossroads for global trade.  The convenient location of the United Arab Emirates between Europe, Asia, and Africa has positioned this growing city to serve as a major logistical intermediary between many foreign markets.  With the development of emerging markets such as China and India, there is a growing opportunity for Dubai to expand its logistical dominance in the modern world economy.  The construction of Al Maktoum International Airport, which will become the largest airport in the world, signifies Dubai’s commitment to this growth strategy. 

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Nowadays many companies are becoming more environmentally conscious and are looking for new business practices that support sustainability. A company called Neutral Fuels in the United Arab Emirates has developed an innovating process that promotes sustainable development while also generating a healthy profit. Neutral Fuels converts used vegetable and cooking oil from local fast food restaurants to biodiesel so that it can be used to fuel trucks. This waste conversion process has had a tremendous impact on the environment and oil production in the United Arab Emirates.

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There are many markets for U.S. goods in the Middle East and North Africa but the largest single market happens to be relatively new. Formed in the 1970s, the United Arab Emirates is the largest single market for U.S. goods in the region and the 19th largest market globally. The United Arab Emirates is a federation composed of seven states located on the Arabian peninsula. As new, large-scale infrastructure projects continue to develop, this market will remain a prominent source of opportunities for United States exporters.

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Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates, faces major environmental problems after years of rapid urbanization and business growth. Located in the desert south of the Persian Gulf, Dubai’s biggest challenge is providing fresh water to its residents. However, the city has many other problems including waste management and sewage treatment operations. Despite being situated on vast oil reserves, the region is also running low on energy sources to support its lifestyle. On top of these complications, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is preparing for a population boom this upcoming decade. Therefore, concepts of sustainability and environmental issues are becoming very important to businesses and citizens of Dubai.

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As globalEDGE has discussed in the previous posts for this month’s blog series, not only are frontier markets growing extremely fast, they also have a lot of systematic risks. These risks can range from extremely prohibitive government regulations to a communist run government that feels it’s appropriate to expropriate private assets when it deems necessary. To transition to a stable growing economy these countries must remove these risks and increase its population’s education and consumption. These will create sustainable investment opportunities and the increase in consumer spending will continue to fuel economic growth.

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Media in the Middle East is in the process of becoming revolutionized. There are currently around 487 free-to-air satellite channels broadcasting throughout the Middle East, and 620 in total. As such, many companies and cities throughout the region are vying for media dominance. Could Abu Dhabi emerge as the front-runner for becoming the Middle East’s primary media hub?

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Trends in the Aerospace and Defense Industry have been shifting lately; what was once a primarily domestic industry has started to become global in nature. As highly populated nations such as China and India become more open to global markets, international suppliers will seek to fill their demands. What are some of the things we can expect to see from the global Aerospace and Defense market in the near future?

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The Burj Dubai Towers (now renamed the Burj Khalifa) opened for business this Monday after about six years of construction. At 2,727 feet (828 meters), the tower is the tallest man-made structure in the world, beating out the KVLY-TV mast in Blanchard, North Dakota, United States and the Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower in Guangzhou, China (which was topped-out in 2009 at 610 meters). Check out this video from Al Jazeera for an interview with Bill Baker, the chief structural engineer at designing firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.

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In October of 2008, Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum formally established Al Nassma - a chocolate producing company. It is not just another chocolate brand however. What distinguishes it from other brands is the fact that Al Nassma chocolate is made with camels' milk and is the first of its kind.

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The domination of English literature and jounalism did not stop users of other languages from contributing to the diversity of global communication. Arabs are a good example of this. Taking advantage of wealth from oil export, they are making efforts to ahieve the popularity of Arabic literature worldwide. For example, on Oct 15th, Bloomsbury announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair that it will launch an Arabic Language publishing house in Qatar. Another multimedia centre is going to be stationed in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates' capital. The purpose of these centres are to train and develop Arabic talent in jounalism, publishing, or broadcasting, who can hopefully build to the success of Egypt's Alaa Al-Aswany and Afganistan-Born Khaled Hosseini; both of them have been international bestsellers. In fact, lots of western readers have interest in Arabic literature, and the recent promotions of Arabic literature are to fulfill "the desire of ordinary people in the west and in the arab world to engage with each other."

Full article can be found here www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/16/middleeast-germany.

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Amidst fears of a global slump, and the assumption that the Middle East will not be immune to it, the property developers of Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates, continue to build, build, and build some more. As businessmen in the world’s hottest real estate market, who can blame them? Dubai’s annual growth rate has been a steady-near 18% since 2001, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

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