Basra, Iraq to be the new Dubai?
Just when things couldn’t get any worse for Dubai, there is now a “New Dubai” on the horizon, according to the commander of British troops in southern Iraq.
British Major General Andy Salmon has declared that it is “mission accomplished” for British troops in Iraq, as the insurgency has been defeated, with the new Iraqi army now filling the power vacuum left behind by the removal of Saddam Hussein.
As he called for British forces to return home he stated that there was “no reason” why, in time, Basra could not become as successful as Dubai with the right investment and a lot of hard work.
The general stated that Basra’s status as Iraq’s only sea port gave it the potential to become a major international city.
He added:
“Basra has a rail link to Baghdad, which has rail linked to Turkey, so in two steps you are at the borders of the European Union and that should not be lost on investors. There is social, economic and political development that needs to take place and we often use names like Dubai when we try and give people an idea of what Basra could become. I know that speaking to some of my Iraqi colleagues they talk about tax-free zones, like elsewhere in the Middle East. It is that sort of vision the Iraqis all have for Basra.”
All is not lost yet for Dubai though as he also predicts that, after thirty years of neglect, it will take twenty years ,and billions of pounds of investment, to reconstruct and redevelop Basra and to rid it of crippling levels of corruption.
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