AL-MAKTOUM INSTITUTE HOSTS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL DAY

DUNDEE’S Al-Maktoum Institute is hosting an Emirates Festival Day today (Tuesday, July 21, 2009) to celebrate the strong links Scotland enjoys with the UAE.
Speakers at the international event, being held at Vision at Seabraes, will also highlight the lucrative contracts that can be won in the Emirates in a range of business and commercial sectors.
Professor Malory Nye, Principal of the Institute, said that the sister-city relationship between Dundee and Dubai underpins those Scottish-UAE links while scope for further relationships to be forged also exists.
“I am delighted that the Institute has organised this inaugural Emirates Festival Day and I look forward to the forum discussion and networking opportunities it offers those attending from Dundee, Scotland and the UAE, including Dubai,” said Professor Nye.
“The Festival has an exhibition on the links between Scotland and the UAE that emphasises the major economic benefits already enjoyed by Scotland.”
The exhibitors at the Festival include the Dubai Government, Emirates Airlines, Highland Spring, Leisurecorp and universities from the UAE.
Professor Nye said that the Institute has played a pivotal role focussing Dubai business leaders’ attention on Dundee and Scotland.
“It is appropriate that this event will focus on the relationships and opportunities that exist between Dubai and Scotland, building on the mutual interest and understanding that exists between the two countries,” he said.
“For many years now the Al-Maktoum Institute has been saying - with great justification - that the interest of Dubai in Scotland through the Institute has great potential benefits for Scotland.
“Now is the time to try to ensure this is taken even further and I have no doubt that it will.”
He outlined many achievements since the Institute’s creation in 2001 by its Patron and Sponsor, HH Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance of the United Arab Emirates, whose vision for multiculturalism is at the heart of the Institute.
“Clearly, the Institute’s arrival set the basis for Dubai’s interest in Scotland and, of course, Scotland’s interest in Dubai,” he said.
Over the past eight years, direct daily flights from Glasgow to Dubai have been established while Dundee and Dubai have signed a sister city agreement, making Dundee the only UK city with such a unique link.
Professor Nye pointed out that the relationship between the countries had led to the redevelopment of the world famous Turnberry Hotel Golf Resort in Ayrshire at a cost of £30 million by a Dubai-based firm and that a five-star deluxe Jumeirah Hotel in Argyle Street, Glasgow was to be opened in 2011 in the heart of the city’s international finance district.
On the academic side, said the Professor, the Institute had enjoyed six years of successful female student visits from Dubai and the UAE to Dundee and Scotland with 260 female students now having completed study programmes here.
Between the Summer School and the Institute’s Academic Training Programme earlier in the year, the Institute estimates the twice-yearly visits represent a £200,000 boost to the local Dundee economy.
“We hope to boost even further the academic and learning links between the UAE and Scotland with Scottish students visiting Dubai and also establishing a basis whereby students from the UAE can come to Scotland for a full semester,” he said...

21st July 2009 | Back To News