Monday 14 December 2009

Relief as state's 25-year boom comes to an end

Even on a rainy Friday, the quietest day of its week, seven big container ships are lined up almost bow to stern along the quay at terminal one of Dubai's Jebel Ali container port.

Cranes busily tend to their piles of containers. In the nearby Jebel Ali Free Zone, long lines of factories and warehouses wait to receive goods from the arriving boxes. They will either be used in manufacturing or sorted for distribution. Nestlé, Kenwood and Lipton's Tea are among the 6,500 companies with facilities here.

The twin facilities in Jebel Ali have provided much of Dubai's wealth over the past 25 years, maintaining its role as the trading centre for much of the Gulf region. The port handles ships too large for most Gulf states' ports and transfers containers to smaller vessels able to reach places such as Qatar and Kuwait.

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