The New Gulf : How Modern Arabia Is Changing the World for Good

Edmund O’Sullivan

Description

The New Gulf provides a concise but complete description of the Arabian countries benefiting most from the affluence sweeping the Middle East in the twenty-first century. It is also designed to answer questions from seasoned residents or first-time visitors. The book places developments in each of the six Gulf states within its proper historical context, and also details the origins, achievements and evolution of Islam. Much of the book's focus is on the people who have shaped its past and are leading it into the futur. The book contains seven chapters: Rise of the New Gulf Civilization, In the Kingdom, Kuwait and the Feminine Mystique, Making a New Eden in Bahrain, Getting Rich Quickly in Qatar, The Last Arabian Sultanate, and The UAE and the New Gulf.

Sujets

• ECONOMICS

Informations

• Publié par: motivate
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9796500168166
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

THE
NEW
GULF
How Modern Arabia
is Changing the
World for Good
IIITHE
NEW
GULF
How Modern Arabia
is Changing the
World for Good
Edmund O’Sullivan
IIIPublished by
Motivate Publishing
Dubai: PO Box 2331, Dubai, UAE
Tel: [phone]; fax: [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail] www.booksarabia.com
Office 508, Building No 8, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE
Tel: [phone]; fax: [phone]
Abu Dhabi: PO Box 43072, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Tel: [phone]; fax: [phone]
London: Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER
e-mail: [e-mail]
Directors: Obaid Humaid Al Tayer and
Ian Fairservice
Consultant Editor: David Steele
Editors: Albert Harvey Pincis
Moushumi Nandy
Senior Art Director: Fredrick Dittlau
Senior Designer: Cithadel Francisco
Designer: Charlie Banalo
General Manager Books: Jonathan Griffiths
Publishing Coordinator: Zelda Pinto
© Motivate Publishing and Edmund O’Sullivan 2008
Reprinted 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including
photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means) without the written permission of
the copyright holders. Applications for the copyright holders’ written permission to reproduce any
part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers. In accordance with the International
Copyright Act 1956 and the UAE Federal Law No. (7) of 2002, Concerning Copyrights and
Neighboring Rights, any person acting in contravention of this will be liable to criminal prosecution
and civil claims for damages.
ISBN: 978 1 86063 229 7
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
Printed by Rashid Printing Press, Ajman, UAE
IVCONTENTS
Preface 1
1 Rise of the New Gulf Civilization 17
2 In the Kingdom 108
3 Kuwait and the Feminine Mystique 162
4 Making a New Eden in Bahrain 186
5 Getting Rich Quickly in Qatar 206
6 The Last Arabian Sultanate 224
7 The UAE and the New Gulf 250

Chronology of Arabia 318
Index 335
VFor Justin Gibbons
and Charlotte Thompson
VI1
PREFACE
Imagine it is 2030. . . . The six Arabian states that are the subject of
this book – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE
– have a combined population in excess of 80 million people, more
than double the 2008 figure. Most live on, or near, Arabia’s east and
west coasts. An unbroken chain of development extends from Ra’s
alKhai mah along the Gulf littoral to the Iraqi border and down much of
Arabia’s 1,600 km Red Sea coastline from the Gulf of Aqaba to Jizan.
Arabia in 2030 has eight cities with more than five million residents.
Riyadh, the largest, has more than 10 million.
Hydrocarbons continue to drive the Gulf economy. But its leaders
have long realized that the least productive use of Arabia’s oil was
sending it in a crude form to be burned in foreign cars and power stations.
Most is processed before export in the world’s largest refnery network.
Gulf gas is converted into plastics or used to fuel heavy industries,
electricity plants and water desalinators. The Gulf, nevertheless, remains
the world’s principal energy supplier. The Gulf Six produce 25 million
barrels a day (b/d) of oil, more than 20 percent of the world total,
compared with some 16 million b/d in 2007. Gulf gas accounts for
oneffth of world consumption.
Sources of oil outside the Gulf are rapidly depleting. World demand
continues to grow. But no one worries about energy shortages. The
Gulf has enough to meet every contingency for at least another
century. And despite fears of relentless price increases, oil in 2030 is in real
terms no costlier than in 2008. In 2030, the Gulf Six have a combined
gross domestic product (GDP) of US$2 trillion at 2007 prices, three
times the fgure recorded 25 years earlier. This makes the region the
sixth-largest economy in the world after China, the US, the EU, Japan
and India. Oil and gas were behind the boom that has transformed
Arabia since oil prices rose to more than US$30 a barrel in 2004. But
energy accounts for a fraction of the region’s economy. Services are the
most important source of income and jobs. Logistics is the biggest
employer of Arabians and great highways cross the peninsula from east to
west and from north to south. The rail link between Jeddah on the Red
Sea and Dammam on the Gulf is one of the busiest on earth.
Income from tourism and travel has overtaken earnings from oil and
gas. In 2030, more than 150 million foreigners will travel to the Gulf.
Nearly 20 million pilgrims will visit the Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca
and Medina which are linked by trains travelling at up to 800 km/h.
Gulf airports handle 400 million passengers a year. Gulf towns support 2 THE NEW GULF
enviable lifestyles. Many Gulf professionals have a house or apartment
convenient for work, a weekend condominium home by the sea and a
boat moored in one of Arabia’s coastal marinas.
Gulf scientists are advancing the frontiers of knowledge. Technology
developed in Arabia made the production of potable water from the
sea possible at a fraction of the cost of extracting groundwater. The
decline in the peninsula’s groundwater reserves has been reversed. In
Gulf towns, all wastewater is being recycled. Solar power is used
extensively to generate electricity for air conditioning in Gulf homes.
Gulf corporations are among the world’s largest. Saudi Basic
Industries Corporation ( Sabic) has become one of the biggest manufacturing
companies in the world. Gulf banks have merged and compete on an
equal footing with Citigroup and HSBC. Gulf airlines span the globe.
The integrated Gulf stock market is one of the world’s biggest.
The Gulf has recorded balance of payments surpluses since 1998
and has accumulated the world’s richest portfolio of international
fnancial assets. The political row in 2006 about DP World’s plans to
take over the management of six American ports deterred Gulf
investment in the US for a decade. But America’s loss was a huge gain for
others. Gulf money fooded into Asian economies and was seminal in
the African economic renaissance.
But it is not all work. Sports are booming and the arts are
fourishing. Religion continues to be the cornerstone of Gulf society, but
Arabia has become the centre of a tolerant and middle-class Islam. Women
are playing important roles in Gulf mosques and Islamic universities as
they have for decades in business and government. Islamic banks and
insurance frms ofering a low-cost alternative to conventional fnancial
institutions are welcomed on every continent.
The Gulf Six have integrated with neighbouring economies and are
the engine of a dynamic Middle East peace economy. The Gulf, once
the zone of confict, has become a waterway of peace. The world looks
to a region transformed by the Gulf’s prosperity for the solution of
apparently intractable confict. . . .
This vision of the future is a work of fiction. Many would consider it to
be fantasy, not a forecast. You can understand why. Since the
mid1970s, the Gulf has seen a revolution and three all-out wars. The
region’s bad reputation can be traced back even further. In the 19th
century, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, described the
Gulf as a “hornets’ nest”. Recent headlines seem to confirm this.
This is being written soon after the fourth anniversary of the US-led
campaign to bring freedom, peace and prosperity to the people of Iraq.
Today, few Iraqis live free of fear, there is little peace and living
standards are little better than before the deposition of the Iraqi Baath re-PREFACE 3
gime in 2003. The British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates there
have been more than 600,000 Iraqi civilian casualties since then.
Terror’s shadow has fallen across the Gulf. In 2003, 2004 and 2005,
killings of civilians in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia shook
international confdence in the region’s stability. A new US war, this time to
bring about regime change in Iran, is possible. The troubles that have
tortured the Gulf for three decades seem endless.
But a New Gulf is rising, one that will be radically diferent to the
old. This book is about the economic, social and political
transformation sweeping the Gulf Six that in 1981 formed the GCC, an
association loosely modelled on the EU. In 2007 they were the fastest growing
part of the world economy. The vision of the Gulf in 2030 is based on
their ascent and the new civilization emerging in the heart of the
Middle East that will transform the region and the world for good.
Oil and gas underpin the Gulf 2030 vision. The countries of the
GCC have more than 40 per cent of proven world oil reserves and a
ffth of world gas. This fgure is likely to rise, not fall, in the years to
come. Across Arabia, there is more exploration than at any point in oil-
i