UAE pioneers lead a quiet revolution across continents

The axis between Africa, the Middle East and Asia will create some of the most interesting business ventures of the coming decades.

For too long businessmen from emerging markets have looked to deals with western companies as confirmation they had "arrived".

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Last Updated: May 19, 2011

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But the emergence of unexpected alliances indicate something interesting is going on in the UAE.

Take, for instance, the newly created Africa Middle East Resources (Amer) in Dubai.

The company was started quietly by Mohamed Alabbar, the founder and chairman of Emaar Properties, and counts among its shareholders prominent members of the UAE leadership.

Mr Alabbar now spends much of his time on a private jet on trips across Africa, stopping for meetings with mining ministers, financiers and politicians.

He puts forward an interesting proposition: let Dubai become a major supplier of commodities to the Middle East's growing industrial sectors and to the behemoth of India.

Mr Alabbar can even use Emaar's ability to build housing quickly and cheaply. On a recent trip to Angola, he discussed the option of building tens of thousands of homes in the war-ravaged country, according to an informed source.

In exchange, Angola could award Amer a mining concession in the northwest of the country, where diamonds, iron ore and rare minerals are in abundance.

In the world of African business, UAE executives may feel more comfortable handling transactions than their western counterparts.

And what is more, a gift of cigars and a weekend trip to Dubai to get to know your partner is considered hospitality, not a breach of anti-corruption laws.

A few weeks ago, Mr Alabbar and his partner Syed Mokhtar al Bukhary signed a US$1.6 billion (Dh5.87bn) deal to run Smelter Asia with Aluminum Corporation of China.

Amer will help provide the raw materials for the smelter with bauxite sourced from Guinea and seek other partners from India, China or the US.

"Dubai is the New York for Africans now," Mr Alabbar told the Financial Times. "I really see that the link between Dubai, UAE and Africa is getting stronger and stronger."

The deal was a coup for Mr Alabbar and a sign of his ability to win deals and create the partnerships with Asian business executives where other state investment companies are slow to move.

These partnerships across Asia, the Middle East and Africa make sense not only because the numbers work. All three areas are ascendant and have for centuries relied on western companies and governments to walk them through the process of going from developing to developed.

Dubai is building the financial services, transport and lifestyle hub between all three areas. Why should a Chinese or Ugandan businessman feel he must travel to London to do his banking? In the Emirates, he can dress in traditional clothes and feel at ease.

Increasingly, the expertise he may be looking for is located a few hours away, compared with a half-day plane trip.

Likewise, why should a sovereign wealth fund or private family office think it must invest in the assets of Germany or the US? A shopping centre in Bonn may be a solid investment but a contract to build a pipeline across Zimbabwe may come with an outsized profit that is rare to find in Europe and North America.

These new ventures across three quite different cultures could be the face of global business in the years to come.

Combining the growing capital of investors in developing regions, the ambitious plans for cities such as Abu Dhabi or Doha, and the cosmopolitan outlook of business executives who have spent their lives abroad, these new projects have the potential to replace our old ideas of powerful and lucrative enterprises.