Dubai

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Dubai or Dubayy (in Arabic: دبيّ) in English refers to either

• one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates on the Arabian Peninsula, or
• that emirate's main city, sometimes called "Dubai City" to distinguish it from the emirate.

The ruler of Dubai was the late H.H. Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who was also the Vice-President of the federation of the United Arab Emirates. The new Ruler who is also the Vice-President and the Prime Minister of the UAE is H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who was earlier the crown prince of Dubai is one of the Sheikh's younger brothers.

Dubai is the second largest emirate in the federation after Abu Dhabi. The emirate is located on the Persian Gulf, southwest of Sharjah and northeast of Abu Dhabi, and reaches into the interior. The town of Hatta is an exclave of the emirate of Dubai and borders Al Wajajah, Oman.

Dubai is different from other members of the UAE because income from oil is only 6% of its gross domestic product. Most of the emirate's income is from the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZ) [1] and now, even more from tourism.

[edit] History

There are records of the town of Dubai from 1799. Earlier in the 18th century, the Al Abu Falasa line of Bani Yas clan established itself in Dubai. The city was a dependent of Abu Dhabi until 1833.

On 8 January 1820, the sheikh of Dubai was one of the people who signed the British sponsored "General Treaty of Peace" (the General Maritime Treaty).

In 1833, the Al Maktoum dynasty of the Bani Yas tribe left Abu Dhabi and took over Dubai "without resistance". From that point on, Dubai, a newly independent emirate, was always struggling with the emirate of Abu Dhabi. An attempt by the Qawasim pirates to take over Dubai was stopped. In 1835, Dubai and the rest of the Trucial States signed a maritime truce with Britain and a "Perpetual Maritime Truce" about twenty years later. Dubai came under the protection of the United Kingdom (keeping out the Ottoman Turks) by the Exclusive Agreement of 1892. Like four of its neighbours, Abu Dhabi, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Qaiwain, its being on the way to India made it an important place.

In March 1892, the Trucial States (or Trucial Oman) were created.

The rulers of Dubai helped trade and commerce grow, unlike the town's neighbors. The town of Dubai was an important port of call for foreign tradesmen (chiefly Indians), who settled in the town. Until the 1930s, the town was known for its pearls.

After the Gulf Rupee lost value in 1966, Dubai joined the newly independent state of Qatar to set up a new monetary unit, the Qatar/Dubai riyal. Oil was discovered 120 kilometres off the coast of Dubai, after which the town granted oil concessions.

On 2 December 1971 Dubai formed the United Arab Emirates, together with Abu Dhabi and five other emirates. This was done after former protector Britain left the Persian Gulf in 1971. In 1973, Dubai joined the other emirates to adopt a single, uniform currency: the UAE dirham.

[edit] Modern Dubai

Oil supply in Dubai are less than 1/20 that of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, and oil money is now only a small part of the city's total money. Dubai and its twin across the Dubai creek, Deira (independent at that time), became important ports of call for Western manufacturers. Most of the new city's banking and financial centers were in this area. Dubai kept its importance as a trade route through the 1970s and 1980s. The city of Dubai has a free trade in gold and till the 1990s was the center of a "brisk smuggling trade" of gold ingots to India, where gold import was restricted (read the novel Dubai by Robin Moore).

Today, Dubai is an important place for tourists and port (Jebel Ali, built in the 1970s, has the biggest man-made harbour in the world), but also increasingly becoming a center for service industries such as IT and finance, with the new Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Transport links are helped by its rapidly-expanding Emirates Airline, made by the government in 1985 and still state-owned. The airline is based at Dubai International Airport and carries over 12 million passengers every year.

The government has set up industry-specific free zones throughout the city. Dubai Internet City, now combined with Dubai Media City as part of TECOM (Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority) is one such enclave whose members include IT firms such as EMC Corporation, Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM, and media organisations such as MBC, CNN, Reuters, ARY and AP. Dubai Knowledge Village (KV) is an education and training hub is also set up to complement the Free Zone’s other two clusters, Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City, by providing the facilities to train the clusters' future knowledge workers.