Putting Dubai on the road to recovery

When Abdul Rahman al Saleh took over as director of the Dubai Department of Finance on Monday, he inherited a gargantuan task.

He will oversee a US$20 billion (Dh73.42bn) bond programme in which Dubai is borrowing money from the Central Bank, help resolve the problems caused by the global financial crisis and try to ensure Dubai’s key companies can perform on a series of large debt repayments due this year.

That is a huge mandate, and Mr al Saleh may at first have seemed an odd choice for the post. Before rising to take one of Dubai’s highest profile government positions, he was the senior director of corporate affairs at Dubai Customs.