The Media Line Staff
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg – The world got its first look Thursday at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed National Museum when backers unveiled architectural renderings of the dramatic 345,000-square-foot structure comprised of five soaring pavilions that mimic the feathers of a falcon’s wing. The project radiates money and prestige, if not a little but of glamour.
The internationally renowned architect Lord Norman Foster is designing the building and the British Museum is lending its expertise. When it opens in 2014 on Saadiyat Island, a sandy patch 500 meters off the Abu Dhabi coast, it will be only one of several world-class cultural attractions that include branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. A prestige golf course, a St. Regis Hotel and a host of other high-end attractions are also slated. The tab for building all this? About $27 billion.
If the plans for Saadiyat Island ring a familiar bell of over-the-top development, the kind that sent Dubai, Abu Dhabi’s next door emirate soaring and then crashing, economists beg to differ. With substantial oil wealth and the lessons learned from Dubai’s experience, the United Arab Emirate’s rising economic power stands a good chance of steering its way through a breakneck growth agenda dubbed Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.
“After the financial crisis they are shifting from real estate. They know that property development alone is not a sustainable growth model over the next five to 10 years,” Jean-Paul Pigat, head of Middle East and North Africa analysis at Business Monitor International, told The Media Line.
Until Dubai World, a quasi-governmental holding company, asked for more time to pay back investors a year ago, Dubai was riding high on luxury real estate development, offices and malls. The emirate, along with Abu Dhabi one of seven that make up the UAE, is now weighed down by debt that may be as much as $100 billion while the property boom has fizzled. The more conservative Abu Dhabi even helped its high-flying brother with a $20 billion aid package last year.
Abu Dhabi still has six hotels opening in 2011, and the tiny emirate is home to three PGA-standard golf courses. But the focus of economic development is on less glamorous projects, like a $5.7 billion aluminum plant; the development of a healthcare center with help from Johns Hopkins University; the Cleveland Clinic; and a host of energy projects.
Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Advanced Technology Investment Co. has taken a majority stake in the semiconductor maker Globalfoundries, which will build a $6 billion plant near Masdar City employing 1,500 people, Ibrahim Ajami, ATI’s chief executive, said in an interview with the UAE’s The National newspaper last week.
The goal is to derive two thirds of its gross domestic product from things other than oil by 2030.
Abu Dhabi also has the added benefit of holding 9 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves — 98.2 million barrels — and 5 percent of the world’s natural gas. It also has enough land to develop without reclaiming it from the Gulf, Robin Teh, director of valuation and research at the international property agency Chesterton International, wrote in The Gulf Times this week.
“Soon, Dubai is likely to have some competition from its neighbor, Abu Dhabi,” Teh said. “Abu Dhabi is in line to offer a greater variety of retail, leisure and recreational activity than most cities in the [Gulf].”
Giyas Gokkent, head of research at Abu Dhabi National Bank, said he didn’t see competition emerging between the two emirates. Much of what Abu Dhabi is developing, such as its airlines and airports and its aluminum industry, is competing with Europe or other non-Gulf economies, not with Dubai, he told The Media Line.
“We’ll have a rapid rail link between the two areas, and if you come back in 15-20 years time you will find a single cosmopolitan area. There will be a merging between Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” he said. “People will fly to Dubai and say, ‘let’s go visit the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi today.’ It will be a single destination. In Yas Island, there will be theme parks – it will be like an Orlando for the region.”
If Abu Dhabi does have any competition, it may be coming from Qatar, another Gulf country with substantial energy resources, said Pigat of Business Monitor International. Qatar aims to boost its liquefied natural gas export capacity by 12 percent to 77 million metric tons a year. Eventually, it wants to raise total oil and gas output to five million barrels of oil equivalent per day, from 2.8 million last year.
Vast amounts are already being spent on education and sports initiatives, the arts and property development, including a quixotic bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
“In terms of infrastructure spending and growth, Qatar is star performer in the Gulf,” Pigat said. “There is a competition within Gulf over who will become the major hub of political and economic power in the Gulf. Abu Dhabi is competing with the likes of Qatar and Bahrain.”
Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved
View full post on All Stories
