Billions spent investing in the UAE’s future

Billions of dirhams being spent on major infrastructure projects across the UAE are an investment in a stronger and more diversified future economy, allowing entrepreneurs' ambitions to flourish.

For a relatively small country, the UAE’s 20 ports might seem excessive. So too might the Emirates’ leading role in constructing more than half of the proposed 2,177km GCC rail network, or the widening of 328km of the E11 highway in the western region, or even Abu Dhabi’s Midfield Terminal, which will open in 2017 and be capable of handling 30 million passengers a year – two and a half times the capacity of the current airport.

But the time to build infrastructure is before it is needed, providing the canvas upon which the skill, drive and ingenuity of the UAE's entrepreneurs will be able to flourish unhindered. Many of these upgrades are part of the Dh360 billion the Abu Dhabi Government has allocated to capital projects in a five-year investment plan, using its oil revenues now to bolster the prospects for non-oil related businesses to thrive in the future, diversifying the economy.

The wisdom of this is apparent in the Khalifa Port, as part of the Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad), one of the country’s biggest recent infrastructure projects. Just 60 years earlier, the needs of Abu Dhabi’s port could be met by dhows pulling up onto the beach and unloading their cargo onto the sand. Even the early oil industry cars were brought ashore in this way.

But Abu Dhabi’s burgeoning development meant a port susceptible to the whims of tide and weather was insufficient, so Port Zayed was created on the eastern end of the Corniche. Designed for use by every­thing from dhows to cargo ships, it too quickly proved inadequate and so Port Khalifa were conceived for a section of coastline near the border with Dubai.

This mega-port was not simply a bigger version of what had been before but, with Kizad, is of a different kind, being flanked by an industrial zone designed to ease the path for entrepreneurs attracted by the UAE’s strategic location, ease of doing business and lack of taxes.

Kizad will further benefit if Gwadar Port in Pakistan becomes a more significant regional force. Gwadar is potentially a warm water gateway to major markets like China, although it currently lacks the infrastructure links to fully exploit that position.

Kizad’s location near Taweela power station – and the prospect of a state-of-the-art road and rail network at its door – makes for a compelling overall business case in which Abu Dhabi is investing in its own future and making it less reliant on an extractive economy.