A visit to the future

Visiting other countries in different parts of the world I usually try to explore their past; being in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait I had the sensation of visiting the future.

In Dubai, Riyadh and Kuwait City, tall imaginative buildings dominate the skyline and dwarf even most of the numerous mosques beneath them. In Dubai, walking through one of the biggest shopping complexes in the world on a Thursday evening, which is the beginning of the weekend there, I had the feeling of seeing globalisation face to face. The thousands of shoppers flowing into different shops came from dozens of countries from every corner of the world and ranged from scantily clad young women to women covered in black from head to toe.

The skyscrapers mushrooming daily in Dubai confuse you and make you wonder whether you are in Shanghai. On the building sites that sprawl for many kilometres, hundreds of dark Asian workers clad in bright green boiler-suits, were lining themselves up outside their contractors' offices hoping to get their salary. Sometimes months pass before they get their hard-earned salary which they eagerly send home to support their families.

This is the inhuman side of what is going on in the vibrant and dynamic and future-oriented United Arab Emirates. Gulf News of February 9 reported that in Dubai the day before, "an Asian was found hanging from a tree on a side road behind the Sonapur accommodation". Gulf News also said: "Many workers suffer from financial problems here and back home while others feel homesick and kill themselves, police said".

The countries of the Gulf do not have any financial problems. They are going through an economic boom and feel very optimistic about the future.

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the benefits of high prices for the top sellers of oil in the world can be seen in the huge building boom going on. Coming from Europe and used to seeing historic city centres, you feel disoriented when you expect Riyadh to look like the cities you are familiar with and find that it is looking more and more like the urban sprawl of American cities.

In the next three years the Saudis intend climbing to one of the top ten strongest economies in the world, and they are getting there. Their second biggest export after oil is cash: $12 billion a year as they invest their money in every continent. They are very aware that within easy reach they also have what are already the most populated areas in the world: India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, that will become lucrative markets in the years ahead.

A lot of goodwill

There are opportunities to be grasped in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. A delegation from the Standing Committee on Foreign and European Affairs of the Maltese Parliament, supported efficiently by our embassy in Riyadh and consular office in Dubai, went in search of these opportunities in a visit from February 3 to 8.

Thanks to the excellent links forged with them by a Labour government 30 years ago, Malta still enjoys a very good reputation in these countries. They showed a lot of goodwill towards us and arranged for us to meet top members of the Saudi Royal family, ministers, high officials from their national assemblies, the secretary-general of the Gulf Co-operation Council, a top executive of the Kuwaiti Development Fund, local and regional chambers of commerce and investment authorities.

At the political level they still appreciate the support we have been giving since the early Seventies to the Palestinians in their painful quest for nationhood. They are happy to have us as a friend in the European Union who can articulate their aspirations.

Some of the people we met told us that in recent years Malta neglected the Gulf countries and focused primarily on seeking EU membership. I think they are right. At one stage the Nationalist government was on the point of closing down our embassy in Saudi Arabia, which on its own is larger than Western Europe in size! The Saudis told us that 80 per cent of delegations they welcomed last year are coming from Europe.

We must now re-address the imbalance we have in our foreign policy and start venturing forth again in a world that is not only bigger than the European Union, but where economic power is shifting rapidly to oil and gas-producing countries, the East, mainly India and China and other powerful countries like Russia and Brazil.

For us to have strong economic growth we must break away in politics and in business from our insularity and our Euro-centrism and seek investments and markets in the new growth areas on our planet. The Gulf region is one of them. These countries do not only have lots of money to spend on projects at home and overseas, they also have a very young population that can only prosper with strong social and economic development. They are investing in huge infrastructural projects, in creating a world class investment environment, in housing, universities and schools, healthcare and leisure.

Changing our mindset

We need to change our mindset if we are to benefit from the boom going on in these countries. We must shed our prejudices and ignorance about these countries, sometimes even expressing itself in vulgar Islamophobia, and resolve the conflicts that we still have with our identity.

Quite a number of us still feel the need to minimise the positive impacts that Islamic civilisation had on the Maltese Islands between the ninth and 13th centuries. We need to inform ourselves better about our past and where we are coming from. We are on the divide between the Christian world and the Islamic world in the Mediterranean. We should change our frontier and fortress mentality into the open attitude of being at the crossroads where diverse cultures meet. We should celebrate our composite identity of being European and Mediterranean.

We must equip ourselves with the skills, behaviour and mindset necessary to face successfully the challenges of world of the 21st century. Our visit to Kuwait, Dubai and Saudi Arabia was a modest contribution to parliamentary diplomacy and has helped to slightly open a bit wider the doors to opportunities available in strong and healthy relationships with these countries. But to go inside and benefit concretely in terms of investment and the creation of jobs and wealth, a lot of hard work still needs to be done.

There are opportunities for companies working in construction, engineering and steelworks. Saudi ministers told us that they need more contractors, skilled personnel and project management to be able to carry out their vast infrastructural projects.

Government-to-government relations help, but our companies need to compete successfully with other companies from other parts of the world. We can only overcome the major disadvantage we face because of our miniscule size if we work together in politics and in business, and design our action plans in a strategic and co-ordinated way.

Shipping, medical and leisure tourism, services like the teaching of English and university and vocational education, investment in facilities like ports, marinas, offshore islands, financial services... are all areas where we can thrive if we grab the opportunities offered by these rich countries.

evaristbartolo@hotmail.com