Dubai in the recent years has undertaken massive development projects, which have prompted great interest from the mass public and press throughout the world. However, academic study on this peculiar pattern of development of Dubai is not sufficient yet.
As a result of intensive development efforts, the Dubai economy has changed remarkably. It has recorded an average 13.5% real GDP growth annually during 2000-05, which was the highest in the world, surpassing that of China and India. Trade, finance, and real estate development especially led the changes. However, Dubai economy has received serious shocks from the global financial crisis that broke out in the late 2008, and questions arose about the sustainability of such aggressive development policies in the meantime.
This study explores the changes of Dubai, and tries to capture the characteristic features in the development policies and the development process of Dubai. It presents the following points as the distinctive characteristics of Dubai development model.
1) Development strategy relying on the vision and ideas of the ruler
2) Market-oriented developmental state
3) Service-oriented unbalanced growth and discontinuous spurt
4) Supply-led development relying on external financing
5) Forming an abnormal double-tier society depending on majority foreign labour