封面文章:中东石油带来新运气
内容导读:中东国家的油井不断的喷出石油,在这些石油一桶桶的运向海外换来美金的同时,阿拉伯酋长们也在不断的将这些钱继续投入到各种工程。而这些工程花费的美金,又大多回到欧美国家的腰包中。除此之外,更多的跨国企业来这里寻找商机,希望在这里谋得利益。文章记述了这种现状对于阿拉伯国家诸多方面的影响。
Cover Story: The New Middle East Oil Bonanza
If the Burj Dubai development isn t the biggest project in the world, it must be close. At night under floodlights thousands of mostly Asian workers in hard hats swarm over a 500-acre building site in the heart of Dubai, the Persian Gulf emirate that is tiny in size but limitless in ambition. Emaar Properties, a local company, is carving out of the desert a new $20 billion district with 30,000 homes, a Giorgio Armani-designed hotel, an ice rink, and a 30-acre man-made lake.
The centerpiece of the project, which employs more than a dozen American firms, is Burj Dubai, a $1 billion tower. It was designed by Chicago architects Skidmore Owings &. Merrill LLP, and its construction is being managed by New York-based Turner Construction Co. "We are moving up one floor a week, and we are now on the 31st floor," says Mohamed Ali Alabbar, Emaar s chairman. The exact planned height is shrouded in secrecy to foil competitors, but Alabbar promises that the luxury residential complex, more than 2,500 feet high, will be "40% taller than anything else."
The world s tallest building? In Dubai? The city-state in the United Arab Emirates captured headlines in the U.S. recently when government-owned Dubai Ports World, through its purchase of Britain s Peninsular &. Oriental Steam Navigation Co. for $6.8 billion, agreed to take over management of several major ports, from New York to Miami. The deal has sparked an outcry among politicians worried that an Arab-owned company could be a vehicle for al Qaeda operatives. The uproar has forced the company to delay its plans in the U.S.