Featured · Partnerships
The EU's Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism flew to Dubai this week, sat down with the UAE's economy minister and both national carriers, and delivered a message that went well beyond the usual diplomatic language. With the EU already supplying a fifth of Dubai's visitors, the timing of the visit was not incidental.
Economy
Dubai pulled in roughly 7 million visitors between January and August, a period that covered seven months of a regional war. August alone came in at 63 percent of last year's pace, and the industry is now betting on winter, Emirates and a packed events calendar to close the gap.
Markets
A little known US backed company has been handed 100 year concessions to 17 Venezuelan oilfields, several of them previously run by Chinese state firms. For Beijing, which has poured more than 100 billion dollars into Venezuela since 2000, the fields changing hands are the easy part to see. The debt left behind is the part that does not show up in a press release.
Infrastructure
Dubai has already put Dh13 billion in contracts to work on Al Maktoum International Airport this year, and it plans to award another Dh55 billion before the year is out. Between the piling numbers and the automated people mover contract alone, the scale here is hard to overstate.
