How Dubai Got Its Mojo Back. But Has It Learned Anything Along The Way?

"I was in Dubai last week for Euromoney’s Middle East Awards for Excellence dinner, and after a couple of years between visits, several things stood out. One, the relative lack of traffic jams; two, the greatly improved efficiency of the airport; and three, a sense that the good times are coming back.With a difference, one hopes, because if there’s one thing that Dubai has proven in the last five years it’s that one can have too much of a good thing.



Dubai experienced the financial crisis a little later than the rest of the world, but when it did, the impact was resounding. It came within a whisker of sovereign default at the end of 2009 – and, even if there was no technical default, still plenty were burned by the debt restructuring that followed in 2010 – while towers were left unfinished and expats abandoned their sports cars at Dubai Airport in order to get out of the country rather than suffer the consequences of being a bad debtor in the United Arab Emirates.



Not only did Dubai’s economy suffer, so did its reputation with international investors. But there is a sense that things are improving now. The cranes are back – not to anything like the same extent as before, but again, that’s no bad thing – and the infrastructure is now in place for further expansion. The mass transit system is up and running, there are many more lanes to carry traffic across the Creek, and th