Dubai's Builder of Big Dreams.

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Author: MacLeod, Scott

Builders & Titans

This year's headlines about a Dubai company's attempt to take over port operations in major U.S. cities publicized what Middle East hands already understood: Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (or Sheik Mo, as some of his subjects fondly call him), is a very ambitious chap.

Although government-owned Dubai Ports World diplomatically withdrew its plan after the U.S. Congress raised a stink about port security, the bid demonstrated that Sheik Mo's aims extend beyond his dream of turning his patch of desert into a futuristic global hub in the span of a generation. His Dubai Investment Group, for example, has taken a 2% stake in Daimler Chrysler AG, while other government entities gobbled up real estate like New York City's landmark Helmsley Building and won contracts worth billions to build Mediterranean spas and even a new city in Saudi Arabia.

Sheik Mo's bold vision of transforming Dubai (pop. 240,000, not including a million or so foreign workers) into another Singapore and raising GDP from $8 billion to $37 billion in 15 years is urban planning on a cosmic scale. A man of many guises--poet; champion horseman; United Arab Emirates Vice President, Prime Minister and Defense Minister--Sheik Mo, 57, above all sees himself as CEO of Dubai Inc. His family-run city-state is no democracy, yet it has become a model of business-style governance in a region known for kleptocracies. His realm includes a blossoming financial center, regional headquarters for global brands, mega shopping malls, amusement parks, a world-class airline and an airport to go with it, luxurious hotels that play host to 7 million tourists annually and the world's largest man-made islands. "What he is trying to do," says confidant Mohammed al-Gergawi, "is to build an Arab and Muslim success story." In case anyone misses the point, Sheik Mo has broken ground on the Burj Dubai skyscraper, intended to be the planet's tallest building.

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By Scott MacLeod