Dubai is starting early to prepare for the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund it will host in 2003. The government is sending a team of experts to Prague on Sunday to observe the preparations there for the September 26-29 meeting of the World Bank and IMF.
Neither Dubai nor state of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) has ever hosted such a meeting. For Dubai, hosting the World Bank and IMF meetings poses both a logistic and a political challenge.
Israel will attend the meeting, and it would be the first time the UAE publicly receives an official Israeli delegation.
UAE officials decline to discuss the political significance of the meeting and focus on the economic and media exposure. In any case, UAE officials predict that by the time meeting convenes, Israel and the Arabs will have achieved peace.
Dubai, the economic and trade capital of the UAE, plans to build more hotels and conferences halls for an expected 16,000 visitors. The UAE sees this as an opportunity to market Dubai as a tourism center and a regional center for electronic trade and services. – (Albawaba-MEBG)
