Dubai's grand plans are how the West was won

With the US economic meltdown affecting most of the world's economy, Dubai still manages to surprise with yet another mega project. This time, it is truly on a massive scale (if reports are true) with a proposal to build a shipping canal across the desert from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean. The idea here is to create a new and reliable sea route for 40% of the world's oil being exported from the Gulf, avoiding the straits of Hormuz (which Iran has consistently threatened to disrupt).

This new mega canal will be a colossal engineering challenge, as it will need to traverse the Hajar mountains using a series of locks and sub-canals, as well as crossing 250km of desert. If built, it would not only be the main route for 90% of the Gulf's oil but also have the knock-on consequence of opening up the interior of the United Arab Emirates.

This new mega canal will be a colossal engineering challenge, but this is the kind of can-do approach that people had when opening up the West Coast of America

This is the kind of can-do approach that people must have had when opening up the West Coast of America - goods (and people) were needed from the industrialised East Coast to the newly acquired lands of the middle of the continent and the West. At the time, the idea of building a transcontinental railway would have seemed an impossible task, from both an engineering and an economic point of view. Not only did they have to construct the railway across a still violent and unruly Midwest, but they also had to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range using only hand tools and labour.

The successful completion of this feat of engineering opened up the United States and drove the industrial expansion of the country, which within 50 years had transformed itself into one of the main trading and industrial powers of the 20th century. Without that vision, another construction marvel, the Panama Canal, would have been neither considered nor built for many years.

At the time, a transcontinental railway seemed an impossible task, but its successful completion drove the industrial expansion of the US

We are seeing similar seismic shifts in the Middle East, with projects that at first sight seem unfeasible and strange, but which 10 or 20 years from now will be seen as the generators of a new economic region. Projects such as the world's tallest tower (the Burj Dubai at over 180 floors), the new Dubai World Central Airport with a projected capacity of over 130 million people per year (over twice that of Heathrow) and Abu Dhabi's Masdar City, which is planned as the first carbon-free, zero-waste city. These kinds of projects create major shifts in the way people do business.

One can only wonder at the sheer bravado of these projects, many of which I have to admit I was sceptical of ever happening but which now are taking shape or already almost complete. Contrast this kind of vision and the recent damp squib response by the public to the proposal to move Heathrow and Gatwick airports to the Thames estuary. This idea should be wholeheartedly embraced by Britain, as it is something that could transform London and the South-east (as well as the rest of the country) and ensure the area's prominence as a trading region of Europe and the world. A similar decision to build Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok airport on the Pearl River estuary was mainly carried out to ensure that Hong Kong remained a major business centre for the 21st century, and this it has achieved very successfully.

We are seeing similar seismic shifts in the Middle East, with projects that may seem unfeasible but which 20 years from now will be seen as the generators of a new economic region

Okay, everybody may have their views on whether the world needs another mega airport or an 800m-high tower - or, of course, on the environmental issues of building a shipping canal through the desert - but you cannot fail to acknowledge the Emirates' sheer vision and forward-thinking attitude.

If we can bail out the banks with billions and billions and end up with only “toxic” paper assets, then why not actually inject some major cash into infrastructure to transform the economy and get it moving forward again? We might also end up with something useful at the end of it.