Dubai will host this year’s IMF World Bank meeting in its giant conference centre. The business community hopes the benefits will continue rolling in afterwards.

If you do not succeed at first, try and try again. That adage worked for Beijing in securing the 2008 Olympics the second time around and has done the job for Dubai in bidding to host the 2003 meeting of the IMF/World Bank.

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The emirate first bid to host the meeting, the single biggest event in the business and financial calendar, in 1996 but lost out to Prague, eventual host of the 2000 event. Dubai planners went back to the drawing board and in 1999 clinched victory, earning the right to host this year’s annual meeting, September 23-24.

Significant event

Ibrahim Belsaleh, director of finance of the Municipality of Dubai and general co-ordinator of the event, says it is the biggest financial event ever to take place in the region. “For two weeks, the United Arab Emirates will effectively be transformed into the head office of the world’s financial sector,” he boasts.

That will mean millions of dollars in spending on the city-state’s hotels and restaurants but Mr Belsaleh and others in the Dubai business community hope that the meeting’s benefits will resonate beyond the fortnight. “It’s the first chance for many policymakers to see the region for themselves. Traditionally, the Mena [Middle East-North Africa] region is associated with a political agenda,” he says. “But there are 1.5 billion people here and there is a lot of economic potential, especially after the war in Iraq is over.”

Last year, the World Bank spent $590m on assistance projects in the Mena region; in the Gulf, much of that was in the form of “reimbursable technical assistance” – in short, loans.

As for Dubai itself, it is a chance to show off the business jewel in the UAE crown. “We are convinced that when bankers and international financiers see for themselves the stability and economic health of the UAE, it will encourage them to consider the country as a future location for investment,” says Mr Belsaleh. He may put the whole UAE into the picture but, these days, it is Dubai with its world-class flight connections, free-zones and soon-to-be-expanded port, not Abu Dhabi, that is foremost in investors’ minds.

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An estimated 4500 delegates from the World Bank’s 184 member countries will descend on Dubai for the meeting. Media, lobbyists and other campaigners should swell the number to more than 7000. In recent years, the meetings have been scarred by protest from anti-globalisation groups which has turned sour (Prague and Genoa, for example). Though short on detail, Mr Belsaleh says there are plans to create a large, tented venue where invited campaigners can go to voice their concerns. “We are engaging civil societies [at the meeting].”

Nevertheless, Dubai is planning a big security operation. Its approach to policing is traditionally low-key but highly effective at keeping Dubai crime-free. A much higher police profile is expected in September.

Success factor

The expansion of the Dubai International Convention Centre (DICC) was a main reason for the emirate winning the right to host the meeting. Once a moderate sized centre, the DICC now boasts a massive plenary hall measuring 140 metres by 60 metres with an adaptable circular core for the September meeting, a 240 metre-long concourse, and additional hotel space of 600 rooms.

In creating such a mammoth, the planners were wary of building a white elephant that would languish underused for years to follow. “We looked at Bangkok [hosts of the 1992 meeting] which had no long-term plan,” says Mr Belsaleh. Dubai has a busy conference season from September to May, and any sizeable conference taking place there will be held at the DICC, he says.

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