Dubai, a City synonymous with Glamour, success & modernity until a year ago, is suddenly being projected as Failure state with no chance of surviving or maintain its image. Things don’t really change that fast as shown in Media. Dubai was projected by media as symbol of extraordinary vision, Unimaginable success in short span of time. In 2007, there was hardly any weak when dubai didn’t announce any tallest, biggest, highest, largest, best project. Dubai was compared with best cities of the world. Its living standard was compared with New York, London & Paris. Dubai announced Water front Project, which was twice the size of Hong Kong. World’s tallest tower, biggest airport, tallest hotel, biggest Mall were some of the projects in Dubai’s pipeline of projects at a time. It seems there was no better place to live than dubai. Vision of Sheikh Muhammad was appreciated by global media. Investors were investing trillions of dollars without giving it a second thought. It was almost a routine to hear announcement of something bigger than earlier Projects almost every month, if not weak.
Very same media has now started saying Dubai ruler’s over ambitiousness has led to bursting of Dubai bubble. Don’t forget that same over ambitiousness make Dubai much ahead of its neighbours, which despite being richer in oil resources lag much behind. Standing tall without any resource (oil) backup is not easy. Only an Over ambitiousness can make it possible. I agree that Dubai Ruler Sheikh Muhammad is poet & Horse rider which makes him really optimistic like other artists. Being an artist himself he believes in dreams & does his bit to realize it. But not all dreams are realistic. Since Dubai has not any oil resources unlike its neighbours (Abu Dhabi & other gulf countries), Dubai realize that to sustain a real growth they should project themselves not only as global tourism & hospitality hub but also as Service & Sports hub.
Once something goes wrong, all critics do their job perfectly. No one dares to Question ambitions of Dubai, global media was all praise for Sheikh Muhammad’s vision & leadership. Dubai was over hyped than & now it is over criticized. Dubai is in fact in deep trouble, Emirates have to beg fellow emirates, Abu Dhabi for bail out which stands around $30b. Dubai world find it hard to repay its loan without Abu Dhabi’s help. Abu Dhabi’s influence on Dubai can be judged by the fact that Tallest building of world, which was recently opened in Dubai, has been renamed after Abu Dhabi ruler. Burj dubai is Burj Khalifa Now. Dubai Real estate bubble has busted dangerously, it claim Nakeel, the Palm developer, as its causality. Dubai official Airline, Emirates , has successfully arranged loan for its next fleet of Airbus A380 planes. Emirates airline too struggled like other airlines worldwide due to lower demand in aviation sector. Many Dubai’s projects were Multi-billion dollar, which need outside finance. Recession has stopped or delayed almost all of them; recently there were report in Japanese media about Japanese firm’s threat to stop work of Dubai metro if not paid which Dubai denies. Rumours, speculations, estimations, surveys, forecast nothing is in dubai’s favour at the point. we should stop speculations & wait till this rumour & speculations Burst & than estimate dubai.
2010 will decide future course of action of Dubai, i am keeping my fingers crossed for that.
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