The Middle East

Since Dubai’s initial forays into state-led industrial development in the 1970s and 1980s, growth in light and heavy manufacturing, logistics and other related areas has taken place almost exclusively in the context of the emirate’s numerous industrial parks and free zones. Indeed, the organisation of Dubai’s economic development into discrete...

Over the past 15 years, Dubai has developed one of the most advanced IT sectors in the GCC region. As of early 2016 more than 90% of the UAE’s population reported using the internet on a regular basis, according to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UNESCO. Usage in Dubai, the country’s largest and most tech-savvy urban...

The UAE’s Cabinet declared 2015 the “year of innovation”. “We convene today in a 500-year-old castle,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the prime minister of the UAE. “Our vision is setting the foundation to build a future that will be for hundreds of years to come.”

Private education is a multi-billion-dollar business in Dubai, and the sector is growing fast as new schools are built to serve the children of a rapidly expanding population of expatriates and Emiratis. The demand for fee-paying education is being met by investors and by foreign financiers as well as home-grown Dubai businesses. New schools...