About Dubai

Dubai’s success story as a world leader in enterprise and modernization has earned the city great international distinction and has made Dubai an important business, trading and tourism hotspot. Dubai is a dynamic, business-friendly city with a great track record for executing major projects.

His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, has dedicated himself to making Dubai a leisure and entertainment capital of the world aiming to bring in 15 million tourists by the year 2010.
Dubai is a modern cosmopolitan city and is home to a mixture of more than 185 ethnicities that live in a lively, international setting and has become an icon for the 21st century. Dubai has great pioneering new projects.

The USD 15 billion expansion of the Emirates Airlines fleet and the USD 4 billion expansion of the Dubai International Airport area is a testament of this commitment to attain such a goal.

Tracing the history of Dubai, its geographical nearness to India had made it an important port for many tradesmen. Dubai was known for its pearl exports until the 1930s but due to the World war and Depression era this industry dissipated. There were some border disputes with the various emirates even after the formation of the UAE. Electricity, telephone services and an airport were established in Dubai in the 1950s, when the British moved their local administrative offices from Sharjah to Dubai. The town joined the newly independent country of Qatar to set up a new monetary unit, the Qatar/Dubai Riyal, after the deflation of the Gulf Rupee. Oil was discovered in Dubai the same year, after which the town granted concessions to international oil companies. The discovery of oil led to a massive influx of foreign, mainly Indian and Pakistani workers, into the city. As a result, the population of the city from 1968 to 1975 grew by over 300%, by some estimates.

On 2nd December 1971 Dubai, together with Abu Dhabi and five other emirates, formed the United Arab Emirates after former protector Britain left the Persian Gulf in 1971. In 1973, Dubai joined the other emirates to adopt a single, uniform currency: the UAE dirham. In the 1970s, Dubai continued to grow from revenues generated from oil and trade even as the city saw an influx of Lebanese immigrants fleeing the civil war in Lebanon. The Jebel Ali Free Zone, comprising the Jebel Ali port (reputedly the world's largest man made port) was established in 1979, which provided foreign companies unrestricted import of labor and export capital.

Dubai is considered to be an enviable real estate place in the world. Dubai is the fastest growing city in the world. Dubai is rated as a very safe place to reside. Dubai is actually very strategically located and is not too far from Europe, Asia or Africa. Dubai is earning the title as a tourists’ city of the world. This is evident in the numbers itself. The number of visitors to Dubai has grown from 1.8 million to 5.4 million in the past decade.

Dubai is a place where the East meets west. Dubai is cultivating the perfect marriage of its own traditional approach fused with western capitalistic interests and thus making Dubai a great economic force.

• Dubai is most definitely a home to many firsts:
• It has one of the biggest airports in the world
• The largest man made port in the world is in Dubai
• The largest mall in the world is situated here
• The only 7 star hotel in the world is located in Dubai
• The largest theme parks in the world and is estimated to be bigger than Disney parks in Florida.
• The largest skyscraper in the world
• Palm Jumeirah the first man made palm-shaped man made island