The sleeping emirate awakens
Watch out Dubai, the dormant emirate of Umm Al Quwain is waking up like a hungry dragon with around US$12 billion worth of mega-projects in the offing. Yes, it's the usual wearisome rollcall of residential-commercial-tourism-shoppingmalls, indistinguishable from dozens of other dreary mega-projects all over the Gulf.
As noted before, UAQ is a rather subtle, mysterious little emirate. As of writing, its entire entry in Wikipedia reads:
"The emirate had 40,000 inhabitants in 1997, and has an area of 750 square kilometers. The emirate is famous for liqueur [sic] trading."
Emirates Today is certainly skeptical of Umm Al Quwain's plan to become the next what - Singapore? Hong Kong? Monaco?
"But it would be ridiculous to see a project implemented for the sole purpose of attracting huge numbers of people in a short time frame – half a million in seven years, in this case.
"There are so many questions that need to be answered first. Why would all these people relocate to Umm Al Quwain? A lovely spot, but hardly the country’s business hub."
As noted before, UAQ is a rather subtle, mysterious little emirate. As of writing, its entire entry in Wikipedia reads:
"The emirate had 40,000 inhabitants in 1997, and has an area of 750 square kilometers. The emirate is famous for liqueur [sic] trading."
Emirates Today is certainly skeptical of Umm Al Quwain's plan to become the next what - Singapore? Hong Kong? Monaco?
"But it would be ridiculous to see a project implemented for the sole purpose of attracting huge numbers of people in a short time frame – half a million in seven years, in this case.
"There are so many questions that need to be answered first. Why would all these people relocate to Umm Al Quwain? A lovely spot, but hardly the country’s business hub."
Labels: construction, umm al quwain
5 Comments:
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I love how the gulf news refers to umm al quwain (or qaiwain? or qawain? all different between logos and text) as a world-class destination ..... ummmm ....
in all this property development and expansion, why dont one of these big emirates buy the smaller ones?
What a coincidence. Just last night a Local guy was telling me how Umm Al Quwain is going to become like Dubai:-) Even though he is actively designing and working on boosting this emirate he admited that it was not a good thing :-(
What a nightmare if the whole of the Gulf became like Dubai? Dubai by itself is nice (in its own bubble), but not for the whole region.
I remember a few months after I arrived in Dubai, the missus and I took a drive oop North to see what was about. RAK was delightful but we only stopped briefly in Umm Al Quwain as it was shut for the day!
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