Financial Times Chief Columnist: I Admire Dubai

John Gapper, the New York based chief business columnist of the Financial Times, has been in Dubai for the past couple of days. In his weekly column and two posts on his official FT blog, he writes about his observations in Dubai as his first visit.

Like many observers, he describes Dubai as “expatriates heaven” and “monument to western pleasure-seeking”. His detailed review of how Dubai has thrived is quite insightful: mentioning the flaws (“tied to the price of oil, culturally absurd and quite stratified”) as well as admiring. His last paragraph is interesting:

“Although I had read about it before, it is still a shock to see at first hand such a thriving and wealthy economy. Yet the Gulf states have not yet enjoyed a similar reappraisal in western eyes to China and India. It is overdue.”