They said he was building a white elephant.
In the early 1970s, His Highness Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum decided to build a port in the middle of nowhere. He called it Jebel Ali Port.
The plan was simple on paper, nearly impossible in practice: build one of the largest man-made ports in the world, designed to handle tanker traffic transiting through the region.
Critics lined up. Everyone told him it would sit empty. A monument to ambition with no real purpose.
In 1979, Queen Elizabeth herself inaugurated the port.
And for a while, it looked like the critics might be right.
Then 1980 arrives. The Iran-Iraq war breaks out. Eight brutal years of conflict.
Here’s what nobody predicted: Jebel Ali Port became the bunkering hub for tanker traffic rerouting out of the war zone. The "white elephant" started earning its keep.
1991. The USSR collapses. Buyers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan – the newly formed CIS countries – start flooding into Dubai. We had a saying back then: they’d buy stones, gloves, anything, because the USSR simply didn’t have consumer goods available. Jebel Ali kept the traffic moving.
1998. The ruble crisis hits. The Asian Tiger economies collapse. Dubai keeps standing.
2001. September 11th happens. The US enters Afghanistan, then Iraq. A lot of people who suddenly felt uneasy with policy shifts back home start relocating – many of them right here to Dubai.
2003. The Iraq invasion. Shock and awe on every news channel. And from 2003 to 2008, Dubai enters one of its most explosive growth periods. Astronomical, by every measure we tracked at the time.
2008. The global financial crisis lands. Everyone whispers the same thing: this is it. This is the end.
It wasn’t. By 2012, recovery is underway. In 2013, Expo 2020 gets announced. From 2015 through 2019, growth slopes upward – steady, unglamorous, real.
I actually made a video around that time calling 2020 the best year yet. Rebound incoming, I said.
Then the pandemic hit. Nobody called that one. Nobody could have.
By August 2020, we were climbing again. And that climb has carried through to where we stand today, heading into 2026.
One of my clients put it better than I ever could: Dubai isn’t a market you time. It’s a place for business, and a hub for business.
Every era had its own reason to stay away – and every era proved the fundamentals mattered more than the headlines.
That’s the real fifty-year pattern. Not luck. Structure.
Save this. Send it to whoever asked you if now is a good time.
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Speak to an AdvisorThis article is general market commentary from FD Global Properties and is not financial, legal or investment advice. Property values, rules and market conditions in Dubai change; speak to a licensed advisor about your own situation before you decide.