News Dubai

They can't be contained
By Shakir Husain, Staff Reporter

Dubai: On the Middle East's maritime map, the 30-year-old Port of Jebel Ali occupies an iconic position.

The port's role in the emirate's development as a business hub says much about Dubai's ability to think ahead of the times.

Almost three decades after the mega-port was completed, there has been no letup in Dubai's efforts to maintain its hub position in the regional maritime business.

From being just an market place, the focus is also turning to more luxurious areas of the industry, including the glamorous cruise segment.

Shipping services

In the country's ongoing infrastructure projects, the shipping sector has its fair share.

Taking advantage of its geographical position, Dubai is working to become a shipping services hub.

Work on Dubai Maritime City (DMC), an exclusive zone on an area of 227 hectares close to Port Rashid, has entered the final phase. It will have shipbuilding and repair facilities, trading areas and offices for maritime companies.

"As the project progresses, it is clear that this will be one of the region's most important maritime developments, and has the potential to transform Dubai into one of the world's top maritime clusters," says Amer Ali, DMC's chief executive officer.

In the typical Dubai style of going all-out, the emirate has created special laws to suit companies in the zone. The jurisdiction they will operate under will be separate from the laws of Dubai and the UAE.

Other emirates are also well aware of the maritime sector's growing importance.

Sharjah has an exclusive industrial cluster that caters to shipping companies. The proposition is in some ways similar to what DMC is doing.

Drydocking, shipbuilding, rig construction, ship design and warehousing are the main businesses of Sharjah's Maritime City, which covers a land area of 100 hectares.

Rashid Al Leem, director-general of Hamriya Free Zone, where the maritime zone is located, said Dubai and Sharjah can complement each other.

"The market is so big it can accommodate both," he says.

The market is indeed big, and growing amid an economic boom that has engulfed the region.

After the port of Jebel Ali, Sharjah also manages the UAE's second biggest container terminal in Khor Fakkan on the east coast.

Another large UAE port is being developed in an area between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Growth

Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi's Taweelah area will have a capacity to handle two million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent standard container units). Its capacity will rise to eight million TEUs by 2015.

It will be managed by Jebel Ali port's operator DP World, the world's third biggest port firm, in a deal between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Starting 2009, Khalifa Port will become the lifeline of Abu Dhabi's trade and commerce as the Abu Dhabi government plans to shut the existing Mina Zayed, which has become restricted by urban development.

In the wider world, however, Jebel Ali remains the port of call. And, since it opened in 1979, it keeps getting bigger. It can receive the 13,000-TEU capacity new-generation vessels. Ongoing expansion will take its capacity from 11.5 million TEUs to more than 14 million TEUs per year by the end of 2008.