Dubai is an example of a successful platform.
By: Baron Chang
Tags: Platform, Dubai, Mena, Gcc, Korea

The view from my hotel in 2013

There are three things not existed in Dubai.

The first is no tax; the second is no oil, and the third is no free.

First of all, there are no individual income taxes dedicated to the country, Dubai, nor any corporate taxes paid by foreign companies. It would be like heaven for salary workers like me because you would get paid a whole amount of your salary without a tax cut.

Secondly, there is no oil, nothing like rich countries of the Middle East Asian countries. What are you talking about? The Gulf Coast (GCC) is not that all nations have become wealthy with oil money. Abu Dhabi (currently UAE capital) in the United Arab Emirates has a lot of oil, but Dubai does not have enough oil or natural gas to make money. In other words, Dubai is an environment in which oil cannot be produced, like Oman or Yaman, poor living conditions.

Lastly, Dubai is all about money as any other worlds are. Money is everything. Most facilities are made artificially, and living expenses and labor costs are very high, so if you do not have enough money, you will not be adequately treated.

Dubai is itself a vast platform.

Middle East Asia means the center of the world, connecting Europe, Africa, and East Asia. In other words, when Europe was the center of human history, the East would have been India for them, and the Far East would have been about China, Japan, and Korea. South would have become Africa for them; therefore, historically, it has been a trading ground between East, West, and South. Dubai is a place that has benefited from such geographical and historical advantages.

But why does Dubai become the only place that could develop such a geographical and historical location? There are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia coast, Bahrain, and Oman, and Yemen. Why Dubai? Why not others? As mentioned earlier, Dubai is a place where oil does not come out. Because no oil came out, Dubai was merely a place for trade in India and Pakistan, selling silk, cashmere, and spices to Europe. The area of this trade has evolved into a platform. It is not a dictatorship; it is a kingdom; it used to be a political system in Korea like Chosun Dynasty.

What they did most was making it difficult for many companies to do business by eliminating tariff barriers. The second is to have a variety of infrastructure and business rules to keep a business-friendly environment. In other words, it attracted them well equipped with facilities of transportation/communication infrastructure, places of trade, hotels, shopping malls, education, and hospitals. Perhaps early in the year, renowned hotels, restaurants, and coffee shop franchise brands might have given incentives to attract business.

For example, in traffic facilities, Dubai has created a subway (public transport) called Metro, despite the small number of inhabitants. Compared to Saudi Arabia, its public transformation is far better than Riyard despite less population of the local people. Moreover, a massive number of taxis are operating. Of course, these taxi drivers are from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Besides, the mall is decorated with splendid decorations, and the show is free of charge every night with spectacular lighting and fountain shows. In the meantime, people prefer Dubai to other cities one by one. In the absence of natural resources and tourism resources, artifacts are created and seduced. Only a handful of tourism resources would be free to open up, which would have had the effect of allowing tourists to stay a day longer, even at the beginning of the operating deficit.

Once the traffic is gathered, the time spending is increased, and business partners are in place, the platform’s ecosystem, where foreign workers with cheap labor find a job, And power. From that time on, it is possible to make its business model. Various tours, entrance to museums, performances, restaurants, liquor sales, and so on.

If you were thinking about punishing money from the beginning, you would have to pay customs fees, admission fees, and taxes. However, in the early days, the deficit would have waited for the long-term platform vision, collecting traffic from an investment perspective. You would have thought that there would be profit from the time the platform power came into existence. After all, people will be able to make money here because they will spend money while eating, sleeping, playing, and watching. (So it is called “Freemium”)

After witnessing the success of this Dubai platform, Doha, Qatar’s capital, is now following it. Qatar can be said to eat well enough without worrying about the platform business, which currently has the second-largest GNP ($ 104,000) in the world with its oil and natural gas at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

However, in preparation for the future of oil depletion, the current government is investing heavily to become an education city, a media city, and a sports city. They are working hard to build infrastructure for generating more traffic. Bahrain, on the other hand, is rewarding efforts to recreate the glory of the pre-Dubai era.

Countries that do not have a vision of the city’s platform and depend only on natural resources like oil (eg Saudi, Oman, Yemen) will fade out. Indeed, many Saudi peoples go to Dubai every weekend to shop, entertain and consume money. It is simply because it is inconvenient to stay in the country variously. What it means to be lagging here implies that one has to go to another country and earn money by doing less essential things in low conditions. (In the GCC, it may be necessary for individuals to work harder than the concept of nation and state. It is presumed that the situation in Korea may be different but from my point of view,

The success factors of Dubai have given us an excellent example of how our government should make excellent policies. Despite the signs of an economic crisis due to short-term cash liquidity issues in 2007, the King of Dubai is highly respected by their people among the Arab states. In Korea, the wrong policy might cause us to be lower-class people. In other words, we might have to go to Shanghai to make money. For instance, we might be a taxi driver in China, or you have to go to a hotel in Hong Kong to be a young woman knocked on a hotel room with meals or to be a housekeeper like Ukrainians and Pakistanis.

We still have to learn more desperately in humble and keep growing and evolving since Korea lacks more things than Dubai.