BEGINNING OF TWO DREAMS

In this chapter, Sheikh Mohammed talks about two of his dreams that were realised in 1985: Emirates airline and Jebel Ali Freezone. He says it is Dubai’s destiny to be the world’s seaport and airport.

British engineer Neville Alan, who came to Dubai in 1958, woke up to a call in the 1970s and was told that the Dubai Ruler wanted to meet him in Jebel Ali. When he arrived there, he found Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed waiting for him. He pointed to the coast and said: “I want to establish a new port there.”

He described how the project needed to be done and asked Alan about the cost. Alan gave him an approximate number and asked when he needed to start work on it. Sheikh Rashid replied: “Immediately.”

The Rashid Port had become the largest in the Middle East after it underwent an expansion. And then, 35km away from the downtown, the Dubai Ruler wanted to establish the largest seaport in the world.

Some traders pushed me to talk him out of the project, but he said: “I am building a project that we cannot build later.”

The year 1985 was different. I had two dreams then: The launch of Emirates airline and establishing a freezone in Jebel Ali, which was a first in the region. It was an area where dealers and traders could import all their products without paying taxes if they exported them through the Rashid Port.

I sent a team to foreign countries to study the project, and when we launched it, 300 companies registered on the very first day.

In a separate incident in 1991, I ordered the merger of the administrations of Jebel Ali and Rashid ports, which led later to DP World.

The dreams got bigger; Emirates and Dubai airport deal with approximately 90 million travellers annually and DP World can transport around 90 million containers annually.

In 2010, I launched a bigger dream, the Dubai World Central, which connects the two older dreams: Our maritime routes and airlines. It is a big comprehensive logistics city that will host a million people, as well as Al Maktoum Airport, which would be the biggest in the world, and serve 160 million travellers annually.

Maybe it is our destiny to be the seaport and airport of the world.

In 2010, I launched a bigger dream, the Dubai World Central, which connects the two older dreams: Our maritime routes and airlines.”

In what he is calling his “incomplete biography”, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has broken his latest book, Qissati (My Story), into 50 chapters, narrating 50 stories in his 50 years of serving the nation. Khaleej Times got a signed copy of the book from the Dubai Ruler and everyday, we will be featuring excerpts from each of the 50 chapters.