Dubai Dreams
Welcome to Dubai Dreams, your first stop for information about holidaying, living and working in Dubai. Whatever you need to know you should find it here, in our comprehensive guide to all things Dubai. We cover every subject, all neatly divided up and easily digestible.
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What is the population of Dubai?
According to the Dubai Statistics Centre, the current population of Dubai is 1.77 million.
This figure is for the end of 2009 / start of 2010. The figure for the previous year was 1.65 million.
Depending on which measure is used estimates can vary wildly, with some adding at least a million extra residents to this figure, depending on how illegal immigrants, guest workers and their families are accounted for.
The Dubai Statistics Centre figure is a reliable one using a cautious and rigorous reseach methodology.
What currency is used in Dubai?
The currency of Dubai, and the other emirates that together comprise the UAE, is the United Arab Emirates Dirham.
This is often abbreviated to either Dh or AED.
Happy 2010 to all Dubai Dreams readers
Happy new year to all our readers.
2009 has been a tough year for Dubai, but there are signs that 2010 might be a year of stabilisation or even slight improvement for the troubled emirate – at least Abu Dhabi has finally stepped up to shore up some of Dubai’s debts now.
Anyway here’s to a happier 2010 – Good luck!
Abu Dhabi leaves Dubai dangling over debts
It was inevitable really, considering the violence of Sheikh Mohammed’s protestations earlier in the month.
It seems that the other emirates, and Abu Dhabi in particular, may have grown tired of indulging Dubai’s reckless expansion after all. Despite Sheikh Mohammed’s vehement denial that Dubai would be left to sort out its own mess, additional help has not been forthcoming from the richest of the emirates.
Experts from Deloitte and Rothschild have been appointed to restructure Dubai World’s estimated $59 billion debt and there is expected to be a fire sale of the government owned subsidiary’s assets.
Repercussions have been felt throughout the world, with so much of Dubai’s building binge funded by borrowed money from abroad. Europe’s FTSE 100, DAX, CAC, America’s Dow Jones and Asia’s Nikkei, Hang Seng and Kopsi indexes all fell sharply on the news, but later recovered.
Dubai’s rulers tried to calm the markets with Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, head of the Supreme Fiscal Committee, rushing to assure the world that:
Our intervention in Dubai World was carefully planned and reflects its specific financial position. The Government is spearheading the restructuring of this commercial operation in the full knowledge of how the markets would react.
But it was Abu Dhabi’s response that everyone was awaiting.
After an extended and ominous silence on the subject Reuters reports quotes from an Abu Dhabi official who says:
We will look at Dubai’s commitments and approach them on a case-by-case basis. It does not mean that Abu Dhabi will underwrite all of their debts.
Some of Dubai’s entities are commercial, semi-government ones. Abu Dhabi will pick and choose when and where to assist.
Perhaps it is no more than a strategic slap on the wrists for the ambitious emirate, or perhaps this is a lesson in accepting and preparing for the consequences over-ambition, either way these are tough times for Dubai.
Sheikh Mohammed tells Dubai and Abu Dhabi doubters to shut up
In an unusually frank and forthright outburst, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE, dismissed concerns of a rift between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and insisted that Dubai was well placed to recover from the global credit crunch.
Dubai has been hit hard by the global recession which has affected both crude oil prices and the property sector, although Sheikh Mohammed insisted that real estate was not the only driver of Dubai’s economy.
He went on to state that the current economic climate “will not deter Dubai’s ambitions.”
On the topic of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the richest of the seven emirates and main contributor to the combined national budget, he described the two emirates as one family.
There had been concerns that Abu Dhabi was not happy at having to prop up Dubai’s economy and support it through the recession, but Sheikh Mohammed dismissed them with the following blast:
“There is no Dubai and Abu Dhabi, we are one, who doesn’t understand this should do their homework before they start talking, we will be there for each other when we need it. And I want to tell those people who nag about Dubai and Abu Dhabi to shut up,” he said.
Well, now you know.