Dubai
Dubai: Leading Progress and Innovation
The kinds of ambitious, far-reaching goals detailed in Dubai’s Strategic Plan 2015 – ‘Vision 2015’ – would seem like an impossible dream coming from anyone other than His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. But Sheikh Mohammed and the emirate he governs have a track record of achieving the seemingly impossible in record time.
Ambitious vision for the future
HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum
HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai
HH Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE
Dubai’s previous strategic plan, ‘Vision 2010’, was announced in 2000 and appeared just as difficult to pull off as the current plan, yet Dubai managed to reach the plan’s goals a full five years ahead of schedule.
Rather than basking in this success, Dubai quickly moved on to the next set of apparently impossible targets. As Sheikh Mohammed put it, “With our achievements come new hurdles, responsibilities and challenges.” He has vowed to make Dubai “a pioneering global city” whose economy is “free of the direct influence of oil-price fluctuations,” and now Dubai’s non-oil sector accounts for more than 95 percent of total GDP.
HH Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan
An ancient trading center on the Gulf whose economy was based on trade and pearling until oil was discovered there, Dubai has transformed itself from a desert outpost into a major world capital with a constitutional monarchy and a flourishing business-friendly economy. Dubai’s neighbors are working to imitate its success story, but Dubai still enjoys the advantage of having been first out of the starting gate in the race to diversify, promote private-sector expansion and attract foreign investment.
