The Catalytic Oil

It was the discovery of Oil in 1966 which provided impetus to the development of large-scale urban landscape in Dubai. Rulers in Dubai used the revenues from Oil for infrastructural development as they knew that they cannot build a flourishing economy on their limited oil reserves. So they opted for diversification and success of their decision can be measured by the fact that Oil now contributes less than 3% of Dubai’s sprouting economy.

Dubai: most Preferred Gateway to the Middle East

To diversify, the leaders of the Emirate decided to leverage its strategic location, and they created world’s largest man-made harbor Jebel Ali, which was completed in 1979. They followed it up by creating Jebel Ali Free Zone in 1985 and in following years Dubai stormed into the league of Singapore and Hong Kong as a Re-export center. This, coupled with liberal civil laws in otherwise the rudimentary the Middle East made Dubai an attractive destination for various multinationals to start their offices and warehouses.

Dubai: a Business Magnet

Rulers of Dubai wanted to make Dubai a trade hub for the entire Middle East and it perpetuated them to invest their resources in creating facilities, infrastructure and develop laws that were conducive enough to lure any company having business interest in the region to Dubai. It was with this vision, the World Trade Centers were built in Dubai in 1979 and the same ambition is epitomized in creation of facilities like Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), Dubai Internet City, Dubai Investment Park and Dubai World Center, etc.

Dubai: a Leisure and Tourism Hub

Dubai is generally devoid of any natural landscape worthy of drawing tourists from a different part of globes. But they made it up and made it up in a way that Dubai attracted about 13.2 million tourists in 2014 alone, which they did mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, Dubai is third most connected air hub in the world courtesy its state-owned airline Emirates and secondly, the architectural marbles that are unique to Dubai. Be it world’s largest indoor ski area in Mall of Emirates or world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, Dubai has it all that makes it a perfect tourist destination.

Building a Knowledge-Based Economy

But Dubai is not content with all this, and as pitched by experts in the field, Dubai is aligning to become a knowledge-based economy to sustain economic growth for a long term. With this vision, they built facilities like Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Dubai Knowledge Village. All these facilities are created to harness growth offered by Information and Communication Technology which has already boosted economies of several other nations. Dubai Internet City, which is already a house to global majors like LinkedIn and Facebook, also aspires to be an incubator to small entrepreneurs offering services like software solutions, web developing, mobile app developers, etc.

The market for ICT-based products and services have been considerably broadened by increasing popularity of e-commerce or online markets. Many companies operating in this sphere have also started offering their products and services through their Mobile App to tap in growing popularity of Smart Phones. The Middle East and North Africa is a big market for companies operating in this field and to tap into this market they require mediums like Mobile Apps, which are tailored according to the needs of the local population. With infrastructure like Internet City, Dubai can be a preferred gateway for ICT companies also where they can also look for local collaborators. As we all know that in these days when you are searching something there is no convenient place to search other than a search engine. Hence, the aspiring companies might just search for the keywords like Mobile App Design in Dubai and hook up with knowledge-based entrepreneurs operating in Dubai playing their role in Dubai’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy.