Growth of Dubai : Gift of Sheikh Rashid - How it becomes so rich?

There are many tourists’ destination around the world, but the way Dubai manage to pull the tourist in their city is tremendous. One of the dream destinations for many people, either to work, or to travel. A visit to Dubai is always noteworthy. But the condition was not favourable few decades ago. It was known to be a gulf area, filled with sand and surrounded by desert. Sustaining life in such condition was not easy, still gradually it becomes a renowned city with world class facility and services.

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It has become a place that has left behind cities all over the world. The city has world class roads, biggest building, biggest malls, biggest hotels, tallest restaurants, tallest elevators. Managing all these on top of sand is remarkable. It is known as city of richest people in the world.
Many of us assume that they manage these because of their oil reserve, but in reality, it is not so. Only 1% of their GDP comes from oil. How they are managing all the luxuries and made things so possible? We need to get deep dive in its history and different tough decision taken over time.
Once Dubai used to be known as Land of Fisheries, because of their geographical location it used to be a good crossing point for the West. Britishers and other countries uses the sea route to reach to India or Pakistan. Later Dubai becomes popular for their Pearl business more than fishing. The fate of Dubai changed in 1958, when Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed becomes the ruler of Dubai. He transforms Dubai into a shining city.

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Transformation Phase

In 1959 he went to Europe and was quite impressed with the infrastructure facility. He decided to make Dubai a Trading Transport and Finance Hub that must be famous all over the world. The strategic location of Dubai helps in making this possible. Dubai is situated in Persian Gulf, between Iraq, Iran, Kuwait Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The route also connects Asia, Africa and Europe. Keeping this in mind, Sheikh Rashid made use of Dubai natural creek. The creek was small where only small boats fits in but big ones could not. Sheikh Rashid, got it dig deeper and wider, so that the big ships can also come there and the creek no more limited to small boats only. They invested all the money, he also taken the loan. This is a huge risk undertaken by the ruler. Sheikh Rashid and had to face lot of criticism.

No Risk No Gain.

This phrases stand suited in case for Dubai. The timely decision taken by Sheikh Rashid, turned comes out to be a huge success. Because of his bold decision big ships started arriving in Dubai. It helps the markets near Dubai doing pretty well. Sheikh Rashid did not stop here. He built an airport in this area, he spent lot of money on the infrastructure. Whatever money was coming in, he was putting it into the development activity. There was huge money requirement and Sheikh Rashid did struggle for it as well. In 1966, Oil rigs found in Dubai, but it turned out to be less as compared to other neighboring countries. Sheikh Rashid believed that this oil would not last long. That is why the money earned from oil was also invested in infra. At that time, he made a quote which is still very famous he said:

My grandfather and father both used to ride a camel, I drive Mercedes, My son will drive Land rover, his son too will also drive Land rover, but the future son will ride again on the camel.

Sheikh Rashid was a visionary ruler, He wanted to make Dubai such a city that does not depend on Oil alone. He put all focus in making use of his ports business. Whenever ships go from one place to another, they need ports for refuelling, loading and unloading. The location of Dubai was such that many ships had to pass from here. Sheikh Rashid understood the importance of this thing at that time, and he made Port Rashid. This allows more ships to halt there, which pave way for more commercial activities on a very large level in the adjoining areas. Port Rashid was built in 1972, and seeing its success , another Port Jebel Ali was built in 1979. Today it is still the largest port in the entire Middle East.

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Looking after other major requirement for shipping business, Dubai Dry-Docks was constructed for repairing and maintenance of ships. When all these starts coming up, The Emirates of Dubai started shining from here.
When the rest of the countries were making big palaces with the money of Oil, at that time Sheikh Rashid thinking was completely different. When all the development things were happening, instead of charging taxes Sheikh Rashid made an announcement which nobody had expected. He made Port Jabel Ali commercial free zone. It means that the ships passing through this area, they don’t have to pay the taxes and whole area was declared tax free zone. This implies that import duty, export duty, manufacturing tax all were waived.

This move of Sheikh Rashid was a game changer, the route becomes everyone favorite's. almost 24% of Dubai GDP started coming form of their Port business. Now Dubai had started changing rapidly towards becoming a big city. Full Credit goes to Sheikh Rashid and his bold vision.

Emirates Airlines

Another major development that Sheikh looked was in the airport development. They have their airports but wanted to commercialize their aerospace too. That time Karachi in Pakistan used to be the big and busy airport. Its location was ideal, which allow America and British Airways to pass through Pakistan. Due to this Pakistan International Airline had becomes very big.
Sheikh Rashid sensing it to be another major source of development. He wants to reroute all the activity through Dubai. Because Dubai location was ideal too for such passage. He wanted to divert this entire business to Dubai. In 1985, he started an airline and named it AIR EMIRATES.

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They gave extra money to Pakistan and started buying Airplanes, and gradually they diverted Pakistan entire aerospace business to Dubai. Today, it is one of the biggest Aeroplane services around the world with luxurious facility provided.

This is how, what started from a creek transformed into a globally recognized port and airlines. Slowly, they get into developing their infrastructure to transform a village into a world class city. All credit must go the ruler himself. His strong will and dedication and vision has succeeded making Dubai a dream city for many. This is also a sign of a good ruler.

Peace!!

Namaste #steemflow

Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha