Article on Dubai's economic strength during the current oil slump resulting from Sheikh Mohammed's Vision

In September I went to Dubai. One day, on a tour of the emirate, including a visit to Sharjah and Fujairah, its neighbouring emirates, I was struck by the modernising projects going on all around. One place in Fujairah in particular - the port of Dibba - was striking. It was an immense undertaking which had literally just finished when I went there and, gazing out at the blue sea, glittering with a million diamonds in the midday sun, you could hear the an incessant, desultory sound, like plastic flapping in the wind. Wondering what it was, I drew my eyes away from the Gulf of Oman and looked around me. The long, orderly row of streetlamps were so new, their protective wrapping had not even yet been taken off them.

Back home, I could not get this image out of my head, and was eager to look into the exact nature of the Dubai project. Everyone has vague ideas of it being something of a Middle Eastern Las Vegas - a playhouse of the rich, materialistic, and narcissistic - but this image of mercantile expansion at Dibba hinted at more profound and important ambitions being realised and funneled feverishly in the region.

I therefore read Sheikh Mohammed's "My Vision: Challenges in the Race for Excellence" which he wrote in 2006, setting out an astoundingly bold and pioneering plan for the emirate. Reading it, it was not longer before one question formed in my mind and kept returning as I turned the pages: 10 years on, how is this dream faring? Much reading and research later, I wrote an article on exactly this topic, which can be found in 'The London Economic'. The link is underneath.

http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/tle-pick/is-the-current-oil-slump-exposing-concrete-evidence-of-the-realisation-of-dubais-ambitious-vision/03/10/