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Transcript
00:00Dubai, the most modern city in the third world, was created by one man.
00:29His Highness Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum, the builder of Dubai.
00:49His Highness Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum succeeded his father Sheikh Saeed Bin Maktoum in 1958.
00:58Sheikh Rashid had assisted his father in government for many years and knew well what he wanted
01:03for his people.
01:05Through the bitter years of the second world war, hunger and poverty had stalked the streets
01:10of Dubai.
01:11Sheikh Rashid wanted to banish this memory with the permanent prosperity of a modern
01:16economy.
01:24None of the 20,000 people living in Dubai in 1958 could have imagined the extent of
01:29their new ruler's vision.
01:32Dubai are born traders.
01:34Their reputation as gulf traders has been chronicled for hundreds of years.
01:38But Sheikh Rashid's vision was for Dubai to become more than just a local trading port,
01:44but to become a world trading port.
01:50Dubai had known prosperity in the past.
01:53Before the Japanese invented the cultured pearl in the 1930s, Dubai had been a major
01:59source of pearls for the world.
02:01In 1907, there were over 400 pearl dows with 6,000 divers and crew operating out of Dubai
02:09Creek.
02:13Dubai has always been a city of sailors, fishermen and men who traded by the sea, and men who
02:19built the boats that carried that trade.
02:29When Sheikh Rashid came to power, he knew that Dubai's future depended on these ancient
02:35skills.
02:39The sea is, and always was, the lifeblood of Dubai.
02:44Its abundance sustained the city-state in an arid, barren land.
02:52For thousands of years, the men of Dubai have dived for pearls.
02:59The pearls are the rich gardens of the gulf warm seas.
03:07Through the last century, and for the first 30 years of this, the demands of rich ladies
03:12in Europe far outstripped the supply.
03:15Dubai flourished.
03:18For two seasons totaling nearly six months every year, the 400 dows of Dubai's pearl
03:24fleets would comb the pearl banks of the gulf, Sri Lanka, Socotra and even the Red Sea.
03:33To support the pearl fleet and market its treasure, there grew up a complex and sophisticated
03:39business community.
03:41Goods had to be financed and supplied at sea.
03:44And most important, Dubai traders bought the pearls and travelled to India, to Egypt, to
03:50the Orient.
03:52They learnt the languages of commerce, and they brought gold and trading goods back to
03:57Dubai.
04:00Pearls the hard-won treasure of the sea made Dubai a city of merchants.
04:06But the city itself, the pearl fleets and even the traders, could not have existed without
04:12the safe haven of Dubai's creek.
04:16The shallow shores and the sudden shamals that drive unwary captains and their cargos
04:21onto the beaches have always made the gulf difficult for traders and sailors.
04:30But in the 1950s, Dubai's very existence seemed doomed.
04:34The creek was silting up.
04:36Growing coral reefs had altered the offshore currents.
04:38Silt carried from south to north along Dubai's beaches was slowly closing the mouth of the
04:43creek.
04:44In 1955, it was no longer deep enough for the larger dows to enter.
04:49Even cargo lighters had to wait to come in at high tide.
04:59From the beginning, Sheikh Rashid's motto was, bring the big ships in.
05:03Many experts told him to build jetties out to the deep water and forget the creek.
05:07But the scheme Sheikh Rashid liked was to use the power of the daily tide to keep the
05:12creek free of silt.
05:14Bringing the big ships in was going to cost half a million pounds.
05:19Sheikh Rashid needed to increase trade to finance the improvements to the city.
05:23With the formation of the municipality, roads were being built for the first time.
05:34Inland, vast reserves of sweet water were discovered deep underground.
05:40Sheikh Rashid ordered that pipelines should bring fresh water into the city.
05:49For the sick and injured, there was the new Maktoum Hospital.
05:56Sheikh Rashid ordered the dredging of the creek to begin.
05:59To pay for it, he sold creek bonds to local merchants and negotiated a generous loan from Kuwait.
06:08The first part of the scheme was to enable the cargo lighters to enter the creek at any tide.
06:14No longer would they be driven ashore while waiting for high tide.
06:22The second part of the scheme would enable steel-hulled coasters of up to 500 tonnes
06:27to enter the creek.
06:29This would make Dubai the major port of the Southern Gulf and the natural trading and
06:33service centre for the oil boom that everyone knew was coming.
06:42The scheme was to deepen and narrow the entrance of the creek and to deepen it inland too so
06:48that at high tide, there would be enough water within the creek to scour out the silt as
06:53it flowed out with the falling tide.
07:00As a by-product of the dredging project, there would be millions of tonnes of rock, coral
07:08and silt from the creek bed.
07:10This was to be used for the second part of Sheikh Rashid's grand plan, to reclaim from
07:15the sea the land he needed to build a modern city.
07:21Some of the new land was to sell for 1,000 times the cost of its reclamation.
07:26Sheikh Rashid's business sense became legendary.
07:36The whole dredging and reclamation scheme was to take years, years for the full scale
07:41of Sheikh Rashid's vision to become reality, a city fit for the next century.
07:47No outsider, no foreigner, no expatriate worker can sense the importance of the creek and
07:53marine trade to the people of Dubai.
07:55From father to son and on to his son, the tradition of trading is in the very blood
08:00of Dubai.
08:01And when Sheikh Rashid said, bring the ships in, no one had to be told why.
08:07In 1963, after four years of dredging, the first of the big ships tied up to unload its
08:13cargo in full view of Sheikh Rashid's office in the customs house.
08:18In 1951, just 2,000 tons of goods were landed in Dubai.
08:23By 1963, it had reached nearly 20,000 tons.
08:29Essential to Sheikh Rashid's success was money management.
08:32He started with a monthly customs income of just 200,000 rupees.
08:37And it increased.
08:38He would use the money to finance development loans from the bank.
08:41For every 50,000 rupees increase at the customs, he would borrow 5 million rupees for a new
08:47project.
08:52Oil had already been discovered in Bahrain, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
08:56And the prospects looked good in Dubai.
08:58In 1962, a new oil company, Continental, spudded in its first exploration well.
09:04But Sheikh Rashid planned nothing on the assumption that Dubai would get oil.
09:08If there was no oil, the development would merely take longer, he said.
09:15Imperial Airways flying boats had used the creek on their way to India in the 1930s.
09:21And in the 60s, Sheikh Rashid saw Dubai's potential as one of the world's most important
09:26transit airports.
09:28Sheikh Rashid himself soon became a seasoned international traveller.
09:32On a visit to London in 1959, he and the young Sheikh Maktoum were given a guided tour of
09:38the city.
09:45Dubai was still a British protectorate.
09:47And the British condition of the city was very poor.
09:51Dubai was still a British protectorate.
09:53And the British controlled Dubai's foreign relations and defence.
09:57Sheikh Rashid foresaw the challenge of independence on the horizon.
10:01But he knew Dubai could not stand alone.
10:04When he met Harold Macmillan, then Britain's Prime Minister, he knew the peoples of the
10:08Emirates must come together to be able to stand alone in the world.
10:14Back in Dubai, the ruler was laying the building blocks of a city.
10:18The ruler was laying the building blocks of a state for businessmen.
10:21He saw that the job of government is not to interfere.
10:25The essentials, like electricity, elsewhere a state enterprise, were in Dubai in the hands
10:31of private enterprise.
10:35The next great step forward was the completion of the Maktoum Bridge in 1963.
10:40Before that, cars and trucks had taken more than an hour to get from one side of the creek
10:45to the other.
10:48November 1966, and the groundwork for eventual federation is laid at the crucial council
10:54meeting in Dubai.
10:57The first step, a common development fund.
11:00And with that money, a first link, a modern road linking Dubai and Sharjah, opened on
11:05November the 16th, 1966.
11:08The essential quality of Dubai is freedom.
11:18Freedom to buy and sell, no formality and no fuss, to find customers for goods and goods
11:23for customers.
11:24The only red tape Sheikh Rashid insisted upon was that everything must be landed at the
11:29customs house beneath his office, and the dues paid before the goods went on the market
11:33or were re-exported.
11:36Sheikh Rashid worked from a modest businessman's office.
11:41He ruled with humour and humanity, and a deep sense of purpose.
11:45The hours he worked were those of a Bedouin or a sailor, the hours between sunrise and
11:50sunset.
11:51He rose with his morning prayers and did not rest until long after dark.
11:56He was accessible to anyone at any time, be he head of state, a businessman, or a simple
12:01Bedouin.
12:06The most important room in Dubai was Sheikh Rashid's old majlis.
12:11Here, with the windows overlooking the trade in the creek and the customs wharves, Sheikh
12:16Rashid would take his coffee and receive the people of Dubai.
12:35Sheikh Rashid ruled and administered by word of mouth and by consensus rather than decree.
12:50In the majlis, he discussed his projects with the people, but most important, he wanted
12:55information.
12:56How is business?
12:57How are the merchants doing?
12:59He made few notes.
13:00He seemed to be able to remember everything.
13:05When he started the creek project, he said to his advisers, open the creek, bring in
13:17the business, and encourage the merchants.
13:19But by the mid-60s, business was outgrowing the capacity of the creek to handle it.
13:24Offshore, big freighters were waiting months to offload their cargo.
13:38Sheikh Rashid knew that if Dubai was to stay ahead, it must have a port for ocean-going
13:43vessels.
13:44The need was made even more urgent when Dubai herself struck oil offshore in 1966.
13:55A modern port had been in Sheikh Rashid's mind for years.
13:58Some suggested that the creek should be dredged deep enough for ocean ships and a few cargo
14:03wharves built.
14:05He knew that would never be enough to satisfy his plans for Dubai.
14:15In October 1967, Sheikh Rashid began his biggest project yet, the construction of a major international
14:22port, Port Rashid.
14:25The initial contract was for just four berths.
14:28Sheikh Rashid wanted more, but was held back by the caution of his advisers.
14:33So he insisted that the port should be designed from the beginning for expansion.
14:39Only Sheikh Rashid knew that when the first bulldozers went into action in 1968, Port
14:44Rashid would one day have not four, but 36 berths.
15:04Almost daily, the Sheikh would drive out to the port site soon after dawn to check on
15:12the progress.
15:13Now, with Dubai's business enterprise underwritten by the certainty of oil, Sheikh Rashid was
15:37impatient to bring the really big ships in.
15:40Every cargo ship that passed by was lost business to Dubai.
15:53With ships queuing to offload their cargo throughout the Gulf, Dubai had to win the
15:58case with her first deepwater port to stay ahead as the Gulf's number one trading city.
16:11The contractor's first headache was where to find the millions of tons of rock needed
16:15to create five kilometers of breakwater.
16:19Sheikh Rashid solved their problem.
16:21He remembered a spot 30 kilometers inland where years before they had tried to dig a
16:26well and had struck solid rock.
16:31And to carry the rock to the sea, a new road.
16:34By the time the project was finished, the trucks had clocked up 11 million kilometers.
16:40The 30 kilometers of road needed to bring the rock to Port Rashid project spurred on
16:44Sheikh Rashid's plan to open the entire emirate with modern roads.
16:49Without a network of highways, it would be impossible for Sheikh Rashid to bring the
16:53benefits of modern medicine, education, and agriculture to all the people of Dubai.
16:59Inland, the tribal people of Dubai were still living as they had done for centuries.
17:05A visit to the growing city of Dubai might take days of trekking across the desert.
17:13But news spreads even across the desert sands, and in 1968, the campfire talk was increasingly
17:19about independence and federation.
17:24In Abu Dhabi in July 1968, the rulers of nine Gulf emirates met to discuss a possible federation
17:30that would seek independence from Britain.
17:35Three months later, they met again in Doha.
17:37It was the fourth meeting of the rulers in less than a year.
17:50When Sheikh Rashid went to London on an official visit in 1969, Prime Minister Harold Wilson
18:00had already announced that Britain's armed forces would be pulling out of the Gulf in
18:051971.
18:06Sheikh Rashid knew that the need for the Gulf leaders to unite in a federal state was now
18:11becoming urgent.
18:20In Dubai itself, the pace of development was becoming frantic.
18:30The population had reached the 70,000 mark, and Dubai was about to become a major oil
18:35exporter.
18:37Development of the offshore fields discovered in 1966 was nearly complete.
18:41But how to bring in the supertankers?
18:44Dubai's coastline is too shallow for oil to be stored on land and pumped to tankers waiting
18:48offshore.
18:51A unique solution to the problem was devised, kazans, vast underwater storage tanks that
18:57would store crude oil right beside the offshore wells.
19:02Early in 1969, Sheikh Rashid came to watch the launch of the first of the kazans, which
19:10had been built on a beach in Jumeirah from 10,000 tons of concrete and 5,000 tons of
19:16steel.
19:25Each tank was assembled in a giant hole in the sand and then, when it was finished, towed
19:30out to sea through a channel bulldozed through the beach.
19:34The tanks were so big, 180 feet high and inside room enough for a football pitch, that great
19:42ocean-going tugs had to be brought out from Europe to tow them out to Dubai's new flatter
19:47offshore field.
19:51Once they had been carefully positioned, each kazan was flooded and sunk.
20:02The tanks had no bottom.
20:04They were intended to fill with seawater.
20:06As oil was pumped in from the top, so it would force water out the bottom.
20:10The oil floats on water and would not mix.
20:13As tankers drew off the stored oil from the top of the kazan, seawater would flow back
20:18in and fill the space the oil left behind.
20:27Later that same year, the first super-tanker loaded with Dubai crude.
20:35With the guaranteed revenues from oil to add to Dubai's now booming trading business, Sheik
20:41Rashid's foresight was now evident.
20:44No one could question his judgment.
20:48But Sheik Rashid knew that only the first foundations had been laid, that the real development
20:52work still lay ahead.
20:54For the moment, everything was held up for the lack of a deep-water port.
20:59But just a year after the first shipment of oil left Dubai, the first ocean-going ship
21:05docked here.
21:06In November 1970, the passenger ship Sedana tied up at the first wharf to be completed
21:11in Port Rashid.
21:13It was just three years since the contract for the first four berths had been signed,
21:18and since then the project had been expanded to 15.
21:21At last, the heavy equipment and goods that Dubai needed could be brought in easily and
21:26cheaply.
21:30Within the city itself, life was being transformed.
21:33Cheap and plentiful electric power meant light and air conditioning for all.
21:38Now business did not stop when the sun went down, it just kept on booming.
21:43But as 1970 drew to a close, the people of Dubai and their ruler were impatient to march
21:50onward to federation and nationhood.
21:57On the 2nd of December 1971, at the guest palace in Dubai, the rulers of Abu Dhabi,
22:04Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, and Oman Gawain declared the independent sovereign
22:10state of the United Arab Emirates.
22:13The seventh, Ras Al Khaimah, was to be welcomed to the federation a year later.
22:19At the ceremony, His Highness Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, was appointed
22:24to be president, and His Highness Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum, the deputy president and
22:29prime minister of the new country.
22:37Later that day, the president Sheikh Zayed signed a treaty of friendship between the
22:41UAE and Great Britain.
22:43The individual emirates had terminated their protection treaties with Britain the day before.
22:50The 2nd of December, a new flag flew.
22:53It has since become famous and respected throughout the world, both in the cause of the Arab nation
22:59and in the cause of freedom and peace.
23:03As the flag of a new nation was raised, so the Union Jack was finally lowered, and with
23:09it, the end to Britain's once mighty Indian Ocean Empire.
23:17The constitution, drawn up in 1971, has remained unaltered to this day.
23:22The Supreme Council, made up of the rulers of the 7 emirates, is the highest authority.
23:28All laws and decrees of the Union are ratified by the Council.
23:32Serving the Council are the President, the Council of Ministers, the National Assembly,
23:37and the Judiciary.
23:41For Sheikh Rashid, the creation of the UAE ensured a secure future for the people and
23:46the city of Dubai.
23:53Within months of the formation of the UAE, the first stage of Port Rashid was completed.
24:03It gave the new country its first deep water port.
24:08Freight from every corner of the globe arrived in Dubai to be transshipped, bought, sold,
24:13and re-exported throughout the Gulf.
24:16Without the foresight of Sheikh Rashid, the vital early development of the UAE would have
24:20been strangled.
24:23Sheikh Rashid was now free to make his vision become reality.
24:27The only limit was the capacity of those around him to match his energy and his amazing command
24:33of detail.
24:34Rashid controlled everything, they said.
24:37No one could keep up with him.
24:43Every morning with the sunrise, Sheikh Rashid drove round the project sites.
24:48Everything was too small, and woe betide any manager who could not give convincing
24:52reasons for any delays.
24:55With Port Rashid open, the airport boomed too.
24:58Sheikh Rashid had the runways lengthened, and in Dubai itself, he decided to have the
25:03two sides of the creek linked at the seaward end with a tunnel.
25:11But he saw that a modern city was more than roads, harbours, and heavy industry.
25:16It must express itself internationally, and entertain and inform its people.
25:21It needs libraries, newspapers, radio, and most important today, television.
25:43In 1974, the top was sliced off a mountain near Hatta for a giant new radio and television
25:49transmitter.
25:50No man had set his foot on this peak before.
25:53It could be reached only by eagles and helicopters.
26:04Later that same year, His Highness opened the first colour television service in the
26:08Gulf, Dubai TV.
26:10Immediately, one million eyes were drawn to Dubai as colour television was beamed out
26:15over the waters of the Gulf.
26:40The next year, 1979, the earth station opened in Jebel Ali, opening the ears and eyes of
26:55Dubai to the world, and the world to Dubai.
26:59Locked onto geostationary satellites east and west, Dubai and the UAE had telephone
27:04and television communication with all the great cities of the world.
27:08Nightly, the news of that day throughout the world came to Dubai's TV screens.
27:17But Sheikh Rashid also wanted to create a state that was a green garden amid the great
27:22deserts of Arabia.
27:32First he turned to Hatta, Dubai's green jewel in the mountains, a jewel created by the gift
27:38of water.
27:39But Hatta was to be more than a green garden.
27:43Dubai's population had increased five-fold and would double again through the decade.
27:48Hatta had to become Dubai's market garden, a garden fed from water trapped deep underground
27:56for millions of years.
28:14Unlocking that water gave Sheikh Rashid pleasure that only a desert dweller could understand.
28:43From now on, the people of Dubai would never know the harsh life of Sheikh Rashid's youth
28:47when men had to dig for water with their bare hands, to spend days without seeing a green
28:53leaf.
29:01With irrigation came a social revolution.
29:04All the people of Dubai could seek a settled life with education for their children and
29:09medical care for their families.
29:33And to bring the big city to the mountains of Hatta and the produce of Hatta's gardens
29:37to Dubai, a new highway was begun in 1975.
30:07Dubai itself was becoming a modern Venice, the Venice of the oil business.
30:24But Sheikh Rashid saw beyond the oil and construction boom.
30:28He must provide a catalyst for the businesses that would support a mature state into the
30:32next century.
30:34In 1975, work started on the trade center.
30:39It was an amazing leap into the future, a 40-story building when just 10 years before,
30:44there had been nothing over two stories in Dubai.
30:47Why build up?
30:48We've got plenty of land, people said.
30:50But whatever the cost, Sheikh Rashid wanted a building that would illustrate Dubai's spirit,
30:56a tower to symbolize Dubai's outwardness and a nucleus for the businesses yet to come.
31:04With the infrastructure developing fast, Sheikh Rashid established separate departments to
31:09carry responsibility for managing the economy, education, health care, social services, planning
31:15and information services.
31:17He set up a board to run Dubai municipality and to follow up his designs for the future.
31:23To organize and protect the commercial and industrial interests of the Emirate, Sheikh
31:27Rashid ordered the creation of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
31:32Sheikh Rashid was building a city that could expand for 50 years.
31:36In 1975, too, the new tunnel opened for traffic.
31:53And the second span of the Maktoum Bridge.
32:02And further up the creek, work started on the Al-Gharoud Bridge.
32:06At the time, some thought it a white elephant.
32:09We're too small to have traffic problems, they said.
32:11But Sheikh Rashid's master plan was always 10, some said 20 years ahead of those around him.
32:23The little mud, stone and barasti city of Sheikh Rashid's first days in power had almost
32:37disappeared amid a green and concrete modern city.
32:41In Dera, the Chamber of Commerce, the symbol of Dubai's merchants, was being expanded to
32:46meet the needs of the booming economy.
32:53And to accommodate the oilmen, trade delegations, salesmen and technical people who arrived
32:58daily in Dubai, the first modern luxury hotel, the Intercontinental.
33:04And for all who came to Dubai and for all who lived in Dubai,
33:08free medical care in the new Sheikh Rashid Hospital, equipped to be simply the best.
33:23And for the new citizens of the new Dubai, free education for all in new schools built
33:31throughout the emirate by the Federal Ministry of Education, with the daily encouragement
33:36and support of His Highness Sheikh Rashid, who saw the young as his greatest asset.
33:53When he came to power, there were no government schools in Dubai and illiteracy condemned
34:06many to manual labour, incapable of handling the new technologies.
34:10But now there were 55 government and 31 private schools.
34:14Within the municipality alone, 27,000 children went to school,
34:19more than the entire population of Dubai in 1958.
34:24Sheikh Rashid inaugurates another project, the Sheraton Hotel.
34:31Around Sheikh Rashid, business multiplied over and over again.
34:35Many became rich beyond their dreams, but he was the architect of their wealth.
34:39He created a unique environment of business freedom.
34:43No red tape in this city.
34:45The ruler asked the businessman, how can I help you?
34:53In 1976, and the next giant leap in Sheikh Rashid's master plan was about to stun the
35:14world.
35:15From the beginning, he saw Dubai in world terms, to become one of the world's great
35:20ports.
35:21So in 1976, he set out to build a new port to rival New York and Rotterdam.
35:31Jebel Ali.
35:34Early that year, His Highness Sheikh Rashid, with Sheikh Hamdan, UAE Minister of Finance,
35:40and Sheikh Maktoum, his heir, signed a contract for a 64 berth port to be built in just four
35:46years.
35:48The experts said it would take years just to find the site.
35:51Sheikh Rashid stuck his stick in the sand at Jebel Ali and said, build it here.
36:01In August 1976, their Highnesses Sheikh Rashid and Sheikh Zayed officially inaugurated the
36:07new project.
36:08The size of the undertaking was almost unimaginable to make a port big enough to be seen from
36:14outer space.
36:17And Jebel Ali was to be more than just a port.
36:20One day, Sheikh Rashid believed it would be a new city based on Dubai's abundant energy
36:26and trading with the world.
36:27So from the beginning, around the frame of Jebel Ali, industry.
36:32First, a giant new power station, and Duval.
36:35First, a giant new power station, and Duval.
36:38The most modern aluminium smelter in the world.
36:42At Jebel Ali, man had started to change the very face of the earth.
37:08120 million cubic feet of sand and rock had to be removed to make two giant harbour basins,
37:15one 11 and a half metres deep.
37:17A 22 kilometre channel was to be dredged out to sea to bring the big ships into the desert
37:23itself.
37:24Now, Sheikh Rashid was adding a 60 kilometre round trip out to Jebel Ali to his almost
37:29daily inspection tours of Dubai's projects.
37:33To build the giant jetty walls, the architects adopted an ancient Roman system of great concrete
37:39blocks keyed together.
37:46And in London, architects, engineers and computers were drawing up another of Sheikh Rashid's
37:51master plans, a dry dock to match the scale of Jebel Ali and Port Rashid.
38:02An empty beach beside Port Rashid was to become the largest dry dock complex in the world.
38:15First, four million tonnes of rock from the quarry found by Sheikh Rashid
38:19to build the outer breakwaters that would protect the project from the winter storms.
38:32As cranes worked out from the beach, bottom-dumped barges laid the foundations in deep water.
38:45The dock itself was to be built with vast concrete boxes, each weighing 3,000 tonnes,
38:51called kassans.
38:53In all, 162 had to be cast on land and then floated into position.
39:02The launch of the first kassan was a major event for Sheikh Rashid.
39:11Within weeks of the first launch, two kassans were being launched each week,
39:15lowered gently into the sea and towed to their place in the dock wall, then sunk.
39:21Once in position, each kassan was filled with sand and topped off with concrete a metre deep.
39:33Within the docks, the dredges went 11.5 metres below the low water mark.
39:43The floor of the dock was to be capped with 1.5 metres of concrete,
39:47strong enough to hold a million-tonne tanker.
39:53The simultaneous development of Jebel Ali Port and the dry dock put Port Rashid under
39:57tremendous pressure.
39:59Yet, thanks to Sheikh Rashid's foresight in ordering 11 more birds in 1969,
40:04Port Rashid remained the only port in the Gulf that could turn a ship round in four days.
40:11Offshore, Dubai Petroleum Company, a partnership between the Dubai government
40:15and Continental Oil of America, now had four fields in production,
40:19Fata, South West Fata, Rashid and Fala.
40:22And beneath the Rashid field, a large reservoir of natural gas had been discovered.
40:27Dubai's aggressive open skies policy was rapidly pushing Dubai Airport
40:36into a leading position in the Gulf.
40:39By the late 70s, Dubai was handling nearly two million passengers a year.
40:43The airport was now equipped to handle over a thousand passengers at one time,
40:48the same as three jumbos landing together.
40:58100 kilometres inland, the mountain oasis of Fata was being transformed.
41:07Sheikh Rashid knew that to ensure Fata's future, it needed a settled and stable community.
41:13He demonstrated his own confidence by building, with his own money, a major new palace.
41:18To make modern farming possible, fields were cleared in the wadi floor
41:22and linked to a new irrigation system that now tapped the water
41:25trapped deep underground during the last ice age, 15,000 years ago.
41:40He authorised the building of 2,000 new buildings.
41:44He authorised the building of 2,000 new houses, a power station, schools and a clinic.
42:07And to attract the city dwellers of Dubai and international tourists, the Hata Fort Hotel.
42:14Linking Hata and Dubai, a 100 kilometre highway now carried millions of tonnes
42:23of crushed rock from Hata's quarries, vital for the dry dock project
42:28and the accelerating pace of Sheikh Rashid's plans.
42:31As the 1970s drew to a close, Sheikh Rashid's grand design began to emerge from the scaffolding.
42:45Seldom has man sculpted the earth's surface to such purpose.
42:49Dubai, a harmony of concrete, steel and marble.
42:53A brand new city of architecture.
42:55Dubai, a harmony of concrete, steel and marble.
42:59A brand new city of merchants.
43:09A green city with modern hotels and leisure facilities.
43:12The final year of the decade, 1979, and Dubai aluminium swings into full production,
43:18producing the purest aluminium in the world.
43:23And 45 million gallons of sweet water a day from the sea.
43:33And 45 million gallons of sweet water a day from the sea.
43:42And 45 million gallons of sweet water a day from the sea.
43:51Sweet water to bring life to an arid land.
44:01June 1979, Sheikh Rashid went to see the first ship enter Jebel Ali Port.
44:12June 1979, Sheikh Rashid went to see the first ship enter Jebel Ali Port.
44:19Through the last 24 months of the project, new birds were opened to shipping,
44:23whilst construction went on behind sand barriers to keep the sea out.
44:29Keeping the whole project in phase, while the port itself was in use, became a nightmare of planning.
44:33One section of quay that needed daily access from 1979,
44:37was the bulk alumina terminal serving Dubai aluminium.
44:41And across the basin from the Dubai Quay, the new container terminal.
44:45Now Dubai was the Gulf's major container handler.
44:48Weekly, thousands were landed for transshipment to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the UAE.
44:54Out at sea, a specially designed dredger on jack-up legs
44:58completed the 22-kilometre deep-water approach channel.
45:03In all, 65,000 45-tonne concrete blocks were needed for the jetty walls.
45:09A thousand tonnes of cement each day.
45:15In sight of the city itself, Dubai Dry Dock was nearly finished.
45:19Its three gates, one 100 metres long, had been reassembled from parts fabricated in Europe.
45:27And on the dock side, two of the largest cranes in the world were being bolted together.
45:32The jibs alone weighed 120 tonnes.
45:36Each crane had a reach of 65 metres and could lift 120 tonnes.
45:43The final stage of the project was flooding and removing the copper dams
45:48that protected the dock gates while they were being assembled.
45:51To test the gates, the docks had to be flooded for the first time.
45:55The first opening of the gates was the final moment of achievement
45:59for the 6,000 people who'd worked on the project.
46:03Each of the 800-tonne gates was lowered without a hitch into its own trench in the seafloor.
46:09MUSIC
46:31So Dubai joined the big league in the ship repair business.
46:35Only South Korea and Portugal have docks even near this size.
46:44February 1979, the Dry Dock is finished just five years after Sheikh Rashid signed the contract.
46:51Its main dock, big enough for five football pictures, dwarfs anything afloat.
46:56The 19th of May 1979, to complete a decade of triumph for Sheikh Rashid,
47:02Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain arrives at the new port of Jebel Ali in the yacht Britannia.
47:08The two rulers met to mark Dubai's final transformation
47:12into a major commercial and industrial power.
47:20First, they officially opened Port Jebel Ali.
47:24MUSIC
47:28At Dubai Dry Dock, the public and their thousands came to see
47:32the Queen and His Highness Sheikh Rashid declare the dock to be officially open for business.
47:38MUSIC
47:54MUSIC
48:04Next, the motorcade took the rulers to Sheikh Rashid's proud new symbol of Dubai,
48:08the International Trade Centre.
48:16The plaque unveiled that day would watch Dubai mature into the 80s.
48:21Soaring above the waterfront city,
48:25this tower would proclaim Dubai's presence deep into the desert and far out to sea.
48:31It would be a magnet for trade, for enterprise, the lifeblood of Dubai.
48:37The dawning of the 80s and Dubai could look forward to a decade of peace and prosperity.
48:45At Jebel Ali, the desert had been nearly tamed.
48:49One basin was finally flooded and the remaining quays topped off.
48:53MUSIC
49:01Through the early cool months of 1980, the unfinished inner basin
49:05was dredged down to 14.5 metres,
49:09while the walls were finished behind protective sand dams.
49:13MUSIC
49:19Throughout the project,
49:23the truck drivers had to deliver 75,000 tonnes of rock a week
49:27to keep up with Sheikh Rashid's schedule.
49:31But in April 1980, they were finished and the second inner basin was waiting to be flooded.
49:35It had to be done with siphons and pumps
49:39because to have breached the sand barrier would have released enough water
49:43to cause a major disaster.
49:47In the 43 months since the first dredger
49:51began its way inland from the beach,
49:55Sheikh Rashid had created a port the size of New York harbour
49:59in an empty desert.
50:03This is the largest harbour made by man,
50:07a port without limits.
50:11Jebel Ali has the space to grow and Dubai has the determination
50:15and business acumen to make it grow.
50:19MUSIC
50:35The dawning of the 80s brought an era of conservation.
50:39When Sheikh Rashid inaugurated Dugas, another successful partnership
50:43he stopped the wasteful flaring off of gas from Dubai.
50:47Offshore and inland at Margam, sufficient gas
50:51had been discovered to give Dubai enough energy
50:55for almost unlimited development through the next century.
50:59MUSIC
51:13MUSIC
51:17In 1980, after a quarter of a century,
51:21Sheikh Rashid saw that his dream had become reality.
51:25No citizen of Dubai would ever know poverty,
51:29no enterprise would be frustrated by lack of opportunity.
51:33Sheikh Rashid's grand design had been achieved.
51:37MUSIC
51:43MUSIC
51:51MUSIC
51:55MUSIC
51:59MUSIC
52:03MUSIC
52:07MUSIC
52:11Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
52:41oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
53:11.