The investment flow will boost the real estate sector at a time when the emirate envisages a shift to 100 per cent non-oil economy beyond the decade. Over the last three years investments totaled only $5 billion, said the NBD report.

In the Dubai Economic Report, NBD quoted executive office estimates and said that since 1996 growth in the non-oil sectors of the economy has averaged 8.6 per cent. It forecast that this is not only set to continue, but even accelerate with the main drivers being construction, stemming from government’s initiatives in tourism, residential building and free zones.

The non-oil GDP of Dubai will grow by an annual average of 11 per cent over the rest of the decade, while the population of the emirate is expected to touch two million by 2010, it said.

The report said that sustaining Dubai’s growth in this decade is no longer an issue. However, the management of this growth is the matter. It is important that this growth is taken across more diversified sectors. The spread will ensure less dependence on construction and tourism and less vulnerability to outside shocks, which might affect foreigner’s confidence, particularly the confidence of tourists. It also suggested that the base for this growth beyond 2010 be laid now, as the government will not have significant oil revenue at its disposal by then.

The report said that it has been suggested in the Executive Office and elsewhere that Dubai has to start thinking less about construction as a driver of growth, and more about qualitative improvements that can make assets more productive.

These concerns matter education, capital markets and the legal system, both functioning of the courts and the laws themselves, especially as they affect the status of foreign business, it pointed out.