It was almost a convincing show. The message to the City of London from Dubai was that the city-state had not only weathered the global economic crisis but was now destined to benefit as more financial groups escaped the high tax regimes and mounting regulatory restraints of more established centres.
That was two weeks ago. I was at a conference in London organised by the Dubai International Financial Centre, which bills itself as one of Dubai’s great achievements. Of course at the time no one in the room had an inkling of the storm that was about to be unleashed by the emirate – the demand for a delay in the debt payments of its flagship Dubai World, a move that sent jitters through global markets and sparked fears of a setback to the economic recovery.
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