What's Doha's Position Right Now?

[nihad]

i was goin thru the other cities..... and i felt like doha is doin pretty good.... i mean to say that the developments are really havin a gr8 pace.... thts nice to say.. hope u people wud be lovin to hear this....

doha has got a very big competetor next to us... dubai...i knw its stupid to compare doha wid dubai... man tht city is runnin... runnin in a pace thts stunnnig everyone....lets talk abt other cities as well like bahrain, abu dhabi,kuwait etc......

i haven't been to dubai recently n neither to bahrain.... so i need u guys to send tellin how big those cities are n what is doha's position in the world rite now..... it can be in any kinda achievement....

this could be a good one for those out der somever to compare doha wid other growing cities... am in bangalore rite now n i knw the people ere....
they all knw abt dubai.... even after the success of asian games people don knw abt the city......... thts sad.... even bahrain is more popular than doha...

anyways lets see how this one goes...???

[Qatar Son 333]

i think right know we are second to dubai in the middel east

[smussuw]

I dont want to sound arrogant but Doha still has a long way to reach Dubai.

It might have the 2nd biggest ambition after Dubai but if u consider its current status it is still behind many middle eastern cities. Doha 4 years ago could have been compared to Sharjah but now we can compare it to Abu Dhabi.

[Qatar Son 333]

acctully 4 years ago doha was worse than sharjah sharjah has more resedentel towers than qatar but i am not shure we arre compared with abudabi although here is what i heard
1.Dubai
2.Doha
3.Abudhabi

also some times

1.Dubai
2.Abudhabi
3.Doha

[smussuw]

^^ Both Doha and Abu Dhabi have huge oil/gas reserves in which contribute over 60% of their GDP and both have a potential.

but Abu Dhabi's infrastructure is way better than Doha and Doha is much smaller.

[QatPhils]

I dont want to sound arrogant but Doha still has a long way to reach Dubai.

It might have the 2nd biggest ambition after Dubai but if u consider its current status it is still behind many middle eastern cities. Doha 4 years ago could have been compared to Sharjah but now we can compare it to Abu Dhabi.

maybe. but its already in a higher booming status than other gulf cities except Dubai.


^^ Both Doha and Abu Dhabi have huge oil/gas reserves in which contribute over 60% of their GDP and both have a potential.

but Abu Dhabi's infrastructure is way better than Doha and Doha is much smaller.

Doha is one of the fastest growing cities in the world (infrastructure and economy - said to be the fastest growing economy), and soon you might not say that.

[Qatar Son 333]

But remmember qatar has the largest non-assotiated gas reserve in the world and we have the highest GDP per capita in the world and our boom is fairly good i mean in just 2-3 years we will be the largest LNG producer in the world
,and even if we want to be booming like dubai we dont whant to make the mistakes that dubai made we are slowly constructing energy city in lusail and scince and technology park and big projects like dubai's but diffrent like lusail in doha ( dubai water front) the pearl Qatar ( palm jumaira) and New Doha International Airport ( jabal ali international airport ) so sometimes you can compare them and the touch of the fastest growing airline in the world and one of the only 4 5star airlines .

[nihad]

well i wud like add a little more..... what i meant was doha was not at all in a developing stage 5 years ago.... and dubai was developing since a very long time ..... but now the situation has changed.....

doha is developing in a very good pace... we all agree to that fact..... we all has witnessd tht.... the achievements that doha has made in 5 years is outstandin... but dubai even after getin their developments programme started very early they seem to be having a nominal pace in their achievements....

the income tht dubai earns is mainly from tourism and business.... incase of doha its different......dubai is world famous due to this very fact i believe... even bahrain is also a very tourist atracted place... dubai being jus one state out of the whole 7 states in u.a.e. , they have turned dubai completely into a tourist attractive center.... abudhabi being the capital city is not as famous as dubai ... i think that says it all.....

i hope more people post their replies.....

[alsen]

not sure lah but Doha is my favourite in ME ^^

[Qatar Son 333]

well i agree but still dubai was developing since 1999 but doha in about 2000-2001 and even faster in 2005-2006

[Qatar Son 333]

not sure lah but Doha is my favourite in ME ^^

really ??? any reson :)

[alsen]

really ??? any reson :)

^^ to be honest i've never been there,but from what i've heard and read Doha is a great city and one most desirable places to live in.would love to visit :)

[Qatar Son 333]

what about dubai shurly you have heard more

[nihad]

alsen ... its really nice to hear someone sayin they like doha more than dubai... infact its the first time am really witnessing dis... from ver did u get dis info...??

[nihad]

doha and dubai are both unique in their own respects... we cannot comapre both in many areas..... coz in tourism dubai is far ahead.. in sporting doha is ahead... in businnes dubai is ahead ... in oil n natural gas doha is realy ahead...

[alsen]

alsen ... its really nice to hear someone sayin they like doha more than dubai... infact its the first time am really witnessing dis... from ver did u get dis info...??

what about dubai shurly you have heard more

ok look....i always know dubai is a great and wonderful city and of course i like dubai too but i think in this case (fav city), it's very subjective .just like some people prefer Vancouver than London..etc :)

actually,i don't know why but i really like doha.but then again,it is a subjective thing.i got this info from some mags and my friends. :cheers:

[QatPhils]

doha and dubai are both unique in their own respects... we cannot comapre both in many areas..... coz in tourism dubai is far ahead.. in sporting doha is ahead... in businnes dubai is ahead ... in oil n natural gas doha is realy ahead...

Doha is investing to be the business hub of the middle east or the world.

not sure lah but Doha is my favourite in ME ^^
:banana:
Since then, the construction makes it very interesting with those superb projects.

well i agree but still dubai was developing since 1999 but doha in about 2000-2001 and even faster in 2005-2006

I would suggest Doha started in 2003. But for 2005 - 06 -07, its developing faster.

[Dubai_Boy]

Abu Dhabi is going places , I doubt Dubai will be able to catch up soon ..... soon as in 7-10 years ..... however, if all ive read and heard of whats in the pipeline for AD is no more than Hot air , i am positively sure Dubai will lead for a very long time

[nihad]

lets wait n see until 2010 another 3 more year...... lets see the time then....
am sure doha will be far aheadd...... also lots of new n interestin projects proposals......

[QatPhils]

^^I agree too!

Doha is attracting world wide attention.

[Dubai_Boy]

lets wait n see until 2010 another 3 more year...... lets see the time then....
am sure doha will be far aheadd...... also lots of new n interestin projects proposals......

mkay...

[suzan]

^^mkay? Please clarify

[Dubai_Boy]

Qatar Will be Far Ahead of Dubai and Abu Dhabi , two of the richest and actually one of if not the fastest growing cities in the world located in a country with alot more cities than Qatar as a whole and almost 5 times the amount of people in 3 years.

then i replied

Mkay with three Emo dots :)

[nihad]

i wana knw how many 7 star hotels are der in doha currently n how many under construction...???

[suzan]

Well.. We cannot compare both countries.. a lot of things fall in-between them.

1st - Population range is massive in difference!! Dubai is a huge city!!
2nd - Space + Capacity! The number of people that Dubai will have in two years wont fit if you bring them to Qatar as it is a smaller country.
3rd - The vision is completly different. Both countries developed what they need and I do say that both's are different.

4th - I think that yes, Qatar is amazingly growing! and in the 2 years projects have raisen massively.

I give it two to three years from now and Qatar will be elevated to the top (maybe not the first place)

I believe that is not time to judge a still-growing or newly-growing country!


Anyway, I don't know where DOha is lying at the moment, but am sure it is lying aroung the future top 3 of the GCC and even of the Arab Countries as in Project development.

[Qatar Son 333]

i wana knw how many 7 star hotels are der in doha currently n how many under construction...???



0 : built 0 : under construction plus no such thing as 7 star hotel unless you count atlantis hotel in dubai btw burj al-arab is 6 star and i think the only in the world

[QatPhils]

^^There is another 7 star but in India, however it is known a little so it is thought to be only Burj al arab has the highest rating.

[DUBAI]

I voted no, but Doha does have a huge plus having a WTO round named after it.

[QatPhils]

^^ And the Doha Debates. :D

[YeMeNi_guy]

i like how you spelled rite

[nihad]

hey.. i was goin thru another site called skyscraperpage.com , am sure amny of u might be aware of this site.... well in this site they have mentioned the number of skyscrapers a country or a city has.... and qatar jus has 56 of em... i believe doha has more.... how true are these info's...???

it cud also be the other way tht they dont count the ones under construction... if thts the case we''ll all have to wait..... also thts when i had a question .........how tall shud a buildin be to be called itself a skyscraper..???

[QatPhils]

^^ Its not updated for a long time.

[Gregorious]

Can anyone update them? Whats the minimum limit for floors & height for a building to be called a skyscraper?

[Skyprince]

^^ Both Doha and Abu Dhabi have huge oil/gas reserves in which contribute over 60% of their GDP and both have a potential.

but Abu Dhabi's infrastructure is way better than Doha and Doha is much smaller.


:hilarious: :eat:

Doha was a very unknown place until 5 years ago.. I still remember in high school 4 years ago when my Geography teacher make Guess the capital city quiz to everyone.. nobody knows the capital of Qatar in my class :wallbash:

But today, Doha has become tremendously popular , it's a very world-class city -- ask anyone on this part of the world and many will agree with me.

Especially since the launch of Al-Jazeera English, it has boosted the image of Doha. Today, Doha and Qatar are worldly known :banana:

[QatPhils]

Can anyone update them? Whats the minimum limit for floors & height for a building to be called a skyscraper?

you have to sign up first.

[Qatar Son 333]

^^ sign up for wat ????

[QatPhils]

to update ssp Qatar buildings

[davy_boy]

Well done to mention the launch of Al Jazeera English, it is a tool for publicity as much as a journalist outlet IMHO.

I was recently in Dubai and even though it's a bigger construction site ( who would have thought it could be a bigger building site than Doha ) they seem to have a lot more focus and producivity going on.

I have said that Doha is 10 years behind Dubai, I think it's more after seeing Dubai recently. It's not down to construction pace, it is about mentality and service levels, Doha is woefully lacking in both.

Until the minds of the generations changes, Doha will be stuck for a while, these things take time to evolve. It is still a very much watch this space location. You cannot change so rapidly and not expect consequences.

I believe that there is an old school layer of beaucracy and resistance sitting beneath the Emir and his forward thinking advisors that is blocking some of the change. This change will come, but will drip through slowly at first and then become a torrent, I just hope people are ready for it, from what I have seen, this doesn't appear to be the case.

All eyes will be pointing this direction soon, but it is still a couple of years away I think ...

[nihad]

well .... dubai has an industry to their credit.. and thats tourism...... which is the main income for dubai.... but doha isn't goin for tht.... so surely dubai will have pace in development coz they have to impress the people flowing into the country.... so they have to go ahead ....

u wana knw whts development, then u have to check out the foreign investment in the country.... i'll give u good example... just find out how many IT companies are there in internet city in dubai.... did u guys think of why there aren't much.... u have of to think of it..... and why no much of sporting events... evens after havin a huge name and reputation...???

i really admire the work of dubai... thts really outstandin... but u gotto understand the reasons behind tht development.... wht qatar is really lacking is lack of proper roads , population.... qtar has lots of free land and they can utilize it even if population grows.... thts the problem wid bahrain... they cant go any further... but the roads n infrastructure has to be cleard.... some areas like the doha jadeed , musherib , sharah kahrabah, umm ghwalina... has one of the worst roads.....

also i heard from people in dubai that many of the buldings n towers being built are still empty and are still to be occupied...??? same in abudhabi..???
i have heard this same stuff from many.....

[salman515]

I voted NO without reading the hall thread. thats my opinion.

[salman515]

After reading, I would go with suzan's opinion. you can say that Qatar is foucing in sports events while Dubai more in turism side. this is two deffernt things.

dubai boy
dont forget that Qatar also have oil and the third largest gas reserve, Qatar also one of the fastest growing cuntries.

[ahmad.oustwani]

i have lived in Doha ever since i was a year old, and i've been living in Dubai for the past two years as well. Luckily i am back in Doha, i love this place and this place is where you can seriously live. i agree with diva boy and sky prince with the point they made. Dubai started way before Doha did, keep in mind guys that Dubai is one of the emirates of the UAE and all 7 emirates support each other all the time, the country has many cities and many airports serving it while in the other hand we are only one main city (Doha) with one serving main citizens airport. not mentioning 4 other airports in the country other than DIA or NDIA in the future. I believe that even though Doha is behind Dubai at the moment, but Doha got to the point its on now faster than Dubai. Therefore, Doha developing rate in my opinion is faster than Dubai. Sports and the AL-Jazerah channel been mentioned, but you guys forgot about QF Qatar Foundation, Education…….Georgetown, Weill Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, Texas A&M, QSTP, Calgary University, North Atlantic, CHN, Qatar University, Shaqab horse back riding academy, Aspire, QLA Qatar leader ship academy, Qatar academy, Jazeera Academy, ASD, DC, AAS, QIs,…..etc. opening next year a new university of journalism, Harvard is opening soon law department once Georgetown graduates its first class………..Dubai is the other hand has knowledge village and AUD. We are comparing two cities here, AUS and other universities in the UAE does not count………I think in my opinion this is very important that Doha is locating itself on the map through education, Sport. Something very useful. Health as well, you can smoke anywhere you want in Dubai….no problems, kids around you, malls, restaurants everywhere……..restaurants here are become completely nonsmoking, you can not smoke in malls since god knows when, soon its illegal to drive and smoke at the same time as smoking causes some car accidents. Basically you soon you’ll be only able to smoke in your own house, outdoors (streets) and bars. As well as they are changing the legal age of smoking from 18 to 21 soon as well. The two cities are similar but they are really different, and I am sure if Doha carry’s on on this way inshalla it would be more famous or more important city than Dubai is.

[Qatar Son 333]

Now Thats A Post i Will Forver Agree With Your Wise :cheers: Thanks For The Greatest post ever !!!!! Go QaTaR

[nihad]

ahmad .. i agree wid u... u talked abt few more points i left out....

[ahmad.oustwani]

Speaking of positions guys, i want you all to take a min and think of what Dubai’s position would be today if Dubai was the only city in the UAE....? Try seeing what point I am trying to get to or make through my question.....it’s very true

[nihad]

i think i did mention this point ahmad... dubai being just one emirate among the rest 7, they turned dubai completely...

[Dubai_Boy]

turned Dubai Completely ?

[nihad]

yea into a tourist destination..... not strict like the other emirates....

[Dubai_Boy]

Sharjah is strict in certain places and compared to say =/ KSA in general its as moderate as you can get

other emirates are too poor and crappy to afford rules and regulations haha

And Dubai has MANY things and excells in tourisim , nothing bad about that.

[Rifan]

Nihad has truly said that hardly anyone in Bangalore (one of India's largest cities) knows about Doha / Qatar. They know Dubai, UAE, Kuwait (war repute), Bahrain, Saudi (obviously), Oman (somewhat better than Doha..)........so, I make it short and tell them its neighbouring Dubai...lol...it gets bugged up to answer at times...

[nihad]

yea... man this is buggin... doha goto do somethn to get fame... they have to concentrate more on asian countries... the west knows qatar very well..
hey rifan wht u doin in bangalore...????

[Qatar Son 333]

then why do you think doha is bidding for the asian games and asian indoor games and the olympics and the asian cup just to be well known world wide !!!

[rbj]

A newspaper article from England last week end in the sunday telegraph. Not too sure where to put it but I am sure most of you will find it here...............................

Welcome to Qatar, the UK's new best friend
Last Updated: 4:19pm BST 23/07/2007



The tiny desert nation is aiming to rival neighbour United Arab Emirates as a centre of wealth and commerce. Damien McElroy in Doha and Neil Tweedie report

Sainsbury's in shopping basket
Money has a particular smell in Qatar, of natural gas. It's out there under the Persian Gulf, 900 trillion cubic feet of it. Such figures mean little to the untutored. A better indicator of this small emirate's natural wealth is the period during which Britain, at current levels of consumption, could satisfy its natural gas needs solely from here - 250 years.


Skyscrapers are testament to Qatar’s wealth. This year gas will overtake oil as the country’s main earner



Qatar is booming. A look at the skyline with its skeletal skyscrapers is enough. Top-of-the-range cars are at every red light, and air-conditioned shopping malls provide distraction for a tiny indigenous population sustained by Western contractors and low-skilled service workers from the Indian sub-continent and beyond.

So rapid is the transformation of Doha, the capital of this small desert peninsular, that only a handful of the towers puncturing the flawless blue sky are occupied. But they will be.

Qatar means to rival its neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, as a centre of wealth and commerce. Doha is very much the little brother of Dubai, but Qatar's rulers have their ambitions.


advertisementHence their £12bn bid for Sainsbury's, that staple of the British high street, and the building at Milford Haven of a huge new terminal for tankers delivering Qatari liquified natural gas to the UK. There is also a stake in the British nursing home industry and a growing portfolio of properties.

The age of the petro-dollar may still be decades from its inevitable close, but the far-sighted Gulf ruler must look ahead to a time when overseas assets will provide the income for his otherwise barren kingdom.

In the meantime, Qatar, a former British protectorate whose bedouin population once knew no other wealth than the odd pearl bed, has riches to burn. Its spending spree in the next few years on the oil and gas industry, domestic infrastructure and tourism is put at £50bn - for a population of some 800,000, including 600,000 or so expatriates.

Despite its minnow size - smaller than Yorkshire - Qatar possesses the third biggest proven reserves of natural gas in the world after the Russian Federation and Iran. By 2012 it is expected to become the world's biggest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG); to ship gas efficiently you need to liquify it by cooling, put it in a specially built tanker and then warm it up at the other end for use.

The huge LNG plant at Ras Laffan is the world's largest. This year, gas will overtake oil as the country's main earner. Qatar is already in the top 20 nations in terms of GDP per head and is quite likely to become the world's wealthiest nation in such terms.

The emirate has benefited from LNG's relative cleanliness as a fossil fuel at a time when western economies are looking to cut greenhouse emissions. It has also been helped by the unreliability of Russia, which has used its energy wealth as a blunt tool of foreign policy.

All this makes Qatar, an otherwise worthless patch of desert, very important to the UK.

Worldwide demand for natural gas has doubled in the past decade and, according to Edinburgh consultants Wood Mackenzie, will triple again by 2017.

The young and ambitious of the Middle East are beating a path to Doha, a somewhat antiseptic city in which huge new projects are announced by the week and rents are spiralling. It can be hard to find a true-born Qatari in the crush of foreign fortune-seekers.

Khalid Mohammad al-Jabr does his deals in the five-star hotels that form Doha's main landmarks. "What would I be doing without the oil and gas money?" he asks. "Diving for pearls like my father and grandfather."

Qatar's wealth is also its vulnerability. With insignificant armed forces, it must rely on the protection of the United States.

When the US needed to move its air operations centre in the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to placate local opinion in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it chose Qatar as the new home.

Al-Udeid airbase, hidden in the desert west of Doha, is enormous, consisting of scores of aircraft hangars housing more than 100 US Air Force and RAF tankers, spyplanes and combat aircraft. Qatar provided the theatre HQ for US Central Command during the Iraq invasion.

The emirate is the domain of the Al-Thani clan. In 1995 the current, Sandhurst-educated ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, seized power from his father, who had ruled for 23 years, in a bloodless palace coup.

His father's attempt to regain the throne in a Saudi-backed counter coup the following year was foiled with the help of Western intelligence agencies.

Qatar has recently embarked on a tentative experiment with democracy by establishing a partially elected parliament. Women in Qatar also enjoy greater freedom than those in Saudi Arabia, being able to vote and stand for office. The emir's wife, Sheikha Mouza, has a prominent role as head of a £1bn charitable foundation and the cabinet includes the first female minister in a Gulf state.

Qatar has also adopted a relatively liberal policy on relations with Israel. However, the royal family has firm control over the security forces and is at pains to maintain good relations with conservative clerics. Like Saudi Arabia, Qatar is a home of Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam. Yet alcohol is served freely in Doha's hotel bars.

Sheikh Hamad's patronage of the extremist Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an example of his cultural fence-stradling. Qaradawi runs the government's Islamic Council and has used his position to support Palestinian suicide bombers and stoning women to death for adultery.

The Al-Thanis' courting of modernity is most in evidence in the studios of Al Jazeera, the satellite station founded with some of the emir's money in 1996. Despite its wealth and its American patron, Qatar is not immune to the troubles of the Middle East. Terrorist action remains a threat. Two years ago a British teacher was killed in Doha when an Egyptian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a cinema.

Relations with Saudi Arabia remain cool - there has been no Saudi ambassador in Doha for four years, mainly because of critical output on Al Jazeera.

And across the Gulf is Iran. Qatar could one day find itself having to answer a US request for basing facilities during an attack on Teheran's nuclear programme.

There are questions too about who owns the enormous wealth flowing out of the oil and gas rigs. It remains unclear if much of the vast sums now being invested abroad belongs to the state, or to the royal family and its inner circle.

But while the Qataris prosper, their guest workers do not always fare so well. Immigrants from the Indian sub-continent can earn as little as £100 a month, and some must pay Qatari patrons for the privilege of living in the emirate. The classified sections of Qatar newspapers contain "most wanted" pictures of workers who have absconded, appealing for their return to face punishment.

Last month, following criticism from Amnesty International, the prime minister conceded that the country's wealth was being built on a modern version of serfdom.

"It is difficult to retain the exit permit system in its existing form," he said. "The system is being criticised. It is being likened to slavery."

In a bar in Doha, a Norwich oil engineer stands alone with a half-consumed bottle of Moet.

"They can't do anything here without us," he said. "We find their gas, we bring it to shore and we refine it. Nothing would happen without us."

[nihad]

then why do you think doha is bidding for the asian games and asian indoor games and the olympics and the asian cup just to be well known world wide !!!

qatarison.. the asian games broadast was not at all good... and people hardly watched it... doha dint get its fame ..... and in case of asian cup soccer, soccer fans in india are very different.. they dont watch any of indias match... alll they do is watch english remier league.. italian, spanish etc... they dont even knw many of the things happenin around them... india is filled wid cricket all over the place.... except in bengal, goa n kerala...

[Qatar Son 333]

qatarison.. the asian games broadast was not at all good... and people hardly watched it... doha dint get its fame ..... and in case of asian cup soccer, soccer fans in india are very different.. they dont watch any of indias match... alll they do is watch english remier league.. italian, spanish etc... they dont even knw many of the things happenin around them... india is filled wid cricket all over the place.... except in bengal, goa n kerala...

i wasent talking only about india you know

[nihad]

well india has a population of more than one billion ... which will be more than the population of 10 other asian countries as a whole... and i jus knw abt india ... so dint think in the way u thought

[Rifan]

Nihad, I'm working @ hp here at b'lore, as well completed my first year MBA..how abt u? wat do u do? and where r u?

Qatarson, no arguments in whatever you've said, yes, Qatar, as we all know, is developing high. But I think Qatar should market itself well, too well i mean, due to the enormous presence of Dubai to the other side. Even the people in Qatar is not much aware of what's up-to-be in Qatar, then how can others know?.....all this said though, i agree Qatar wants to put a mark in world map in Sports. But what about the national team, i mean Qatar's National Football team...they are hardly getting into semis atleast these days (Asian Games, Gulf Cup ; all an exception), despite importing certain foreign players and converting them... ain't i true? correct me if i'm wrong.

[nihad]

Nihad, I'm working @ hp here at b'lore, as well completed my first year MBA..how abt u? wat do u do? and where r u?

Qatarson, no arguments in whatever you've said, yes, Qatar, as we all know, is developing high. But I think Qatar should market itself well, too well i mean, due to the enormous presence of Dubai to the other side. Even the people in Qatar is not much aware of what's up-to-be in Qatar, then how can others know?.....all this said though, i agree Qatar wants to put a mark in world map in Sports. But what about the national team, i mean Qatar's National Football team...they are hardly getting into semis atleast these days (Asian Games, Gulf Cup ; all an exception), despite importing certain foreign players and converting them... ain't i true? correct me if i'm wrong.




i was doin ma graduation in bangalore.. i finished it n now in ma native .. kerala for few days n then to doha in few days..... am stayin in j.p.nagar.

[Turbosnail]

*edit*