Paul Griffiths reviews Future of Dubai’s Airports

Paul Griffiths, CEO, Dubai Airports, explained how the development of Dubai World Central would be financed through a private and government investment partnership in an exclusive interview in The Report: Dubai 2008, the latest edition of the authoritative business guide to be published by Oxford Business Group (OBG), the highly acclaimed publishing, research and consultancy firm.

“A large amount of the depreciation of the assets will be met from the revenue we generate,” he said. “As we expand and grow, clearly our income is going to increase and our ability to finance the new airport is going to be greater.

“That said, the government is intrinsically involved in the financial model of the development of Dubai World Central and a lot of the additional activity that will take place around the airport will help support that investment.”

Acknowledging the size of the undertaking, he said that much of the financing is being raised through instruments such as bonds and securitisation.

“If you take the development of Dubai International, the new terminal, the expansion of concourses two and three, and the development of Dubai World Central, you are probably talking about $40bn,” he said.

Griffiths stressed the massive opportunity presented by developing an airport from scratch, enabling an innovative approach to airport access by road, and a streamlined method of security, with much of the processing done off site, utilising a fingerprint or a swipe-card, which will make it possible to deal with a range of security issues instantaneously.

Emirates, he noted, is not saddled with a legacy of out of date business models and so is able to respond very quickly to business trends in the aviation sector, and even set them.

“We are very lucky that Dubai is a geocentric hub; there are hardly two points on the planet that are not connected through Dubai,” he said. 

“Another important point is the fact that around one-third of the world’s population is within four hours’ flying time. Finally, if you are expanding rapidly, you are always buying the latest equipment and if you’re new, you don’t have the legacy constraints.”

Rated as a premier guide for foreign direct investment into the country’s dynamic economy, The Report, produced in association with primary research partner Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, offers a comprehensive and detailed assessment of Dubai’s opportunities for growth, the economic challenges which lie ahead, and the overall attractiveness of the emirate for investors.

With an international distribution of 76,000, it is a complex guide to the many facets of Dubai, including its macroeconomics, infrastructure, political landscape, banking and sectoral developments, and is considered one of the most comprehensive intelligence reviews produced on the emirate.  33% of its subscribers are in Europe, 25% in North America, 17% in Asia, 14% in GCC countries, and 11% in North Africa and the Levant. 26% are financial institutions, 21% in energy, 20% in IT and telecommunications, 18% in industry, and 9% in real estate and construction.

The 200-page OBG publication contains is produced by a team of OBG analysts based in Dubai for six months, who conducted some two hundred interviews with leading political and economic figures.

The interview with Griffiths is carried in full in The Report: Dubai 2008, which will be available in print form and online.

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