FROM
NOVEMBER 30th fully 70,000 people from around the world will descend
on Dubai for the UN’s annual climate summit. The cop, as it is
known, is a 12-day jamboree that draws diplomats, businessfolk and
activists. Should they have time to escape the crush at Expo City and
travel towards the glitzy skyscrapers dotting the coast, they will
find a city, and a country, in the middle of an astonishing boom.One
giveaway is the crowds of goldenvisa-toting Russian billionaires,
Indian businessmen and Western financiers. Another is a property
frenzy. In September buyers queued in the wee hours to snap up villas
in Dubai’s latest ritzy land-reclamation scheme, Palm Jebel Ali,
that start at $5m. The properties have yet to be built.
Last
year’s energy-price spike brought the United Arab Emirates, one of
the world’s largest producers of oil, over $100bn in revenue. That
is about $100,000 for every Emirati citizen. But oil is not the only
reason the country is prospering. In a time of war and economic
fragmentation, the UAE seems to be a port in a storm. Multinationals
are setting up factories and offices at a rate not previously seen in
the UAE’s five decades of independence. Oil and gas now account for
just a third of GDP, and the oily bits of the economy are growing
more slowly than the rest of it. The economy as a whole grew by 3.7%
in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2022.
Excluding oil and related industries, it grew by 5.9% (see chart 1 on
next page).