Recently, social media platforms have been circulating such ridiculous topics as, “Why Dubai’s economy is collapsing ...”.

Ironically, such an exaggerated analysis was supported by data based on no reliable references, but are no more than the opinion of an anonymous person who does not have the necessary qualifications to analyse any country’s economy or even on trends that typically need macroeconomic experts.

We, as the residents of Dubai, have not seen what’s been exaggerated. All that we’ve felt and seen is that Dubai and the UAE economy are playing an important role in the global economy and interacting strongly within it.

The global economy has its own dynamics and there is something called an “economic cycle”, known well even by first-year economics students. This cycle is a regular process that all economies go through. Maybe the writer of that social media piece does not know about such economic cycles.

In France, for instance, more than 50,000 companies go bankrupt every year, while Germany sees more than 20,000 fold up. In the European Union as a whole, more than 2.3 million companies go bust annually. But more get established in a healthy market, with 2.7 million new entities registered on a yearly basis, an increase of 400,000 from the previous year.

Positives

In this aspect, the social media writer tried to fish in troubled waters, and referred to some of the difficulties some companies have suffered, which is a normal issue. Yet, the writer declined to mention the positives, such as the increased registration of companies, real estate trading, the number of passengers at Dubai Airport, besides other numbers that reflect the continued growth and prosperity of Dubai’s economy and that of the UAE.

For example, soon after reading the article, I received an SMS from a British investor who came to Dubai four months ago to open a branch of his company and during which time I had taken him to Jebel Ali Free Zone and then to Hamriyah Free Zone. The SMS reads, “I have good news, this summer I will move to Dubai with my family”.

This is just a simple example of how things are going on despite attempts by Qatari-run media, which has tried to promote an alternative reality and believing they could fool all the people all the time.

We have to understand the way the Qatari media is being run. When Qatar feels its failure in any area or recognises its poor performance in one sector, it tries to promote the impression that the sector is facing problems in another country, especially in the UAE.

Take for example the recent statement by Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker when he said that “his company will incur big losses this year”. With that in mind, we will find the Qatari media has launched a misleading campaign highlighting the difficulties being experienced by Emirates and Etihad Airways and distract attention from its national carrier’s problems.

The same applies to the rest of Qatar’s media strategy, which spends hefty amounts of money to distort facts about the economies of the four countries boycotting Qatar.

UAE growth

Logically, how would the Dubai economy collapse amid high oil prices of more than $70 (Dh257) per barrel and in a country whose daily production exceeds 3 million barrels? Add to that the testimonies of many international sources, including the International Monetary Fund, which pointed out that the UAE economy will achieve growth rates in 2018 and 2019 of 3 per cent. And bear in mind Dubai’s economy is part of the UAE’s.

The strangest of all is that the earlier campaigns targeting Dubai during the global financial crisis in 2008 and then in 2014 focused on the fact that fugitive investors had left their cars at the airport. This time, that broken theme has not been deployed, as investors may have taken their cars with them. More so as we had advised them in a previous column to take their cars with them instead of leaving them at the airport! Apparently, they seem to have responded to this advice.

In short, the UAE economy, including Dubai’s, is going to prosper thanks to its strong foundations, unlike the Qatari economy, which is vulnerable to a serious crisis amid the depletion of its financial reserves and the intensification of the boycott.

— Dr Mohammad Al Asoomi is a UAE economic expert and specialist in economic and social development in the UAE and the GCC countries.