Singapore vs Dubai — the global city of the future?  & More News Here

By Surekha A. Yadav

Sunday, 05 Jun 2022 7:40 AM MYT

JUNE 5 — Recently I went to Dubai for the first time. Now I’ve really been to the desert sheikdom a couple of instances earlier than however solely ever to the airport as I’ve handed by on the technique to different locations.

Like many Singaporeans for a few years, I assumed of it as a kind of aspiring Singapore. Or only a pit cease on the technique to some place else.

But this time I feel I’ve begun to grasp the city. Though folks have a tendency to check Singapore and Dubai, I feel the cities are on totally different journeys.

Of course there are similarities.

Dubai and Singapore began life as slightly small out of the approach locations. But really Singapore began out slightly forward.

By the Fifties, Singapore was already a significant city with over a million folks and main infrastructure whereas Dubai at the identical level had beneath 70,000 folks, didn’t also have a single resort and its homes consisted largely of mud huts.

Just a era in the past it barely existed however at present there are greater than three million folks in the city which is greater than half the dimension of Singapore.

Along the traces of Singapore, Dubai started to rework itself by quickly constructing and increasing its port and airport.

It started to supply tourism and monetary companies to the oil-rich states round it. Like Singapore, Dubai isn’t blessed with assets — it has little or no oil in comparison with its neighbours, so it needed to innovate.

It turned an indispensable finance and repair centre to its useful resource wealthy neighbours and profited drastically from doing so. Sounds acquainted?

But there are essential variations.

Most importantly, Singapore is house to over three million residents — most of whom have known as the city house for generations. But in Dubai, residents of the UAE represent solely 10 per cent of the inhabitants. There are extra Philippine, Indian and Pakistani nationals in the city than locals.

This makes Dubai very cosmopolitan and in some methods extra rootless than Singapore. In Singapore whereas there are various foreigners in the city, we speak about a Singapore core which is actual and essential to the city’s identification. But in Dubai there’s hardly a core.

It’s not a case of one being higher than the different, it’s simply totally different. I for one am grateful that Singapore has a rooted core inhabitants however Dubai’s openness to folks from throughout the world is refreshing and interesting.

Of course there’s the climate. I’m a tropical human. I discover the dryness, the lack of rain, grass and timber in Dubai and Gulf international locations troublesome and of course, local weather shapes a city.

On a basic degree, Singapore is extra deliberate and Dubai stays extra free wheeling.

Trading homes of all kinds dot the panorama and issues are undoubtedly much less manicured than at house.

In common there’s now a staid maturity to Singapore. Our island is not aspiring to be a global monetary centre; it already is one of the world’s main centres for monetary companies.

Dubai, for instance, is extra open to cryptocurrency than virtually another main city. Dubai has granted main cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance licencing one thing that Singapore authorities have been hesitant to do.

This has led to many cryptocurrency-based enterprises basing themselves in Dubai however tellingly many of the CEOs of these crypto corporations nonetheless reside in Singapore.

Singapore delivers each low taxes and an excellent high quality of life however Dubai actually is changing into increasingly aggressive.

There are some genuinely glorious artwork galleries and of course extraordinary bold tasks like the world’s tallest constructing — the Burj Khalifa.

Singapore has by no means actually gone in for this kind of status venture and whereas I usually like our (comparatively) gradual and regular strategy, there’s a threat that we may be slowly dropping our frontier spirit.

Ultimately it’s all the time a mixture you want. There are issues we are able to be taught from one another.

I for one will return there. There is unquestionably extra to discover.

*This is the private opinion of the columnist.

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