Dubai tram opening represents another step on a momentous journey

From the birth of Internet City to the age of the tram, Dubai is always moving onwards and upwards, writes Frank Kane.

The ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of Dubai Internet City went off with all the pomp and glamour you expect from an event centring round Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Dazzling lighting, on-stage hologram video projection and the elite of the emirate’s royal and business community ensured it was a night to remember.

But there was one rather more personal cameo delivered from the podium by Mohammed Abdullah Al Gargawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and one of the driving forces behind DIC, indeed the whole free zone strategy that has become one of the hallmarks of Dubai’s economic development.

Mr Al Gargawi painted a nostalgic picture of the day in 1999 when Sheikh Mohammed took him into what was then undeveloped sand and shoreline and told him of his vision for the future. “He took me to the desert one day and showed me a place where people had lived 3,500 years ago. He said that they made an innovative economy, and so shall we.”

It was a poignant moment. You could imagine the two men in the early morning mist looking out over the sand and seeing the future: a fully fledged modern city in what was then just desert.

But who were the ancient people Sheikh Mohammed was referring to? A little internet research indicates he must have had the archaeological dig at nearby Al Sufouh on his mind. In the mid 1990s, the Dubai authorities, with help from Australian archaeologists, had uncovered remains and other traces of habitation dating back more than 3,000 years.

The Al Sufouh site – not open to the public but it can be visited with permission – holds the relics of a substantial human habitation, with signs of burnt ash, worked shell, pottery and human bones. There is some suggestion it was used as a crematorium.

The inhabitants were proto-Emirati merchants, traders in copper from the mines at the Hajjar mountains. Even back then, Dubai was a trading hub.

Mr Al Gargawi also revealed another, more recent aspect of the emirate’s economic history. He told the audience in the DIC amphitheatre that the original plan to build Dubai’s internet hub had been financed by a $200m loan from HSBC. An interesting little snippet of Dubai’s financial past.

The next big event in Al Sufouh’s history comes this month with the opening of the tram system that extends along the eponymous road, then into a loop around Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Beach Residence, before heading back to its terminus somewhere around the corner from Dubai College.

Come to think of it, the terminus must be round about the spot where Sheikh Mohammed and Mr Al Gargawi walked that morning 15 years ago. It will be a red letter day for many, myself included. Progress is progress, of course, and you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, but if the formal opening of the tram puts an end to the miseries of pedestrian and motoring life in the area, I will be among thousands of very happy Marina residents.

Over the past two years the environs of my apartment building have been dug up and rebuilt many times, with roads closed and diverted and pavements redirected so that they lead you into a dangerous labyrinth of construction works.

But enough whingeing. The new tram does look splendid, I have to say, something you’d see in a clockwork-run Swiss or Scandinavian capital. I look forward to the age of the tram.

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