David Knott
The Age
Thursday March 30, 2006
David Knott, 57, moved to Dubai in June 2005 with his wife, Sandy, to become chief executive of the recently formed Dubai Financial Services Authority.
"My first impression was that it was the Gold Coast meets Las Vegas. It is a place where the construction almost overwhelms you, there's so much going on and it happens so quickly. If you go away for a couple of weeks and come back, the difference is noticeable. "A lot of it goes back to the current ruler's father, going back 35 years. The temptation must have been there to have the oil money roll in and just sit on it, and there were other parts of the region where people did that. But this family decided they wanted to create a broad-based economy. The United Arab Emirates is not all that rich in oil, Dubai certainly is not. The oil will run out, and not too far away in the future. "The Dubai International Finance Centre is 110 acres carved out of central Dubai, being built from the ground up for the international capital markets players. The Dubai Financial Services Authority covers banking, insurance and securities here in the Centre. At the moment if you walk through here there's no retail, no residential, just a couple of the initial office buildings. Within a couple of years this centre will be a combination of commercial, retail and residential, all built around the international finance market. The amount of money that is involved in something like this is almost unimaginable. What it is intended to do is bring to Dubai the major investment firms. The first chief executive of the Dubai Financial Services Authority came out in 2004 and it's public knowledge that a dispute arose. His version of it was there was a governance type of issue in relation to some land dealings. I think it was more complicated than that but the long and short of it was they parted ways and both he and the chairman, who were both British, left. That caused a significant negative response from the international regulatory community. When this all blew up I was the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and my impression from that distance was that this was very bad and a huge setback. Obviously when I was asked to look at it, at the very top of the list was independence, how this would operate, will they give me the tools to do the job? There was no point coming here and not being able to do it properly. "The people here realised the size of the mistake and the size of the problem and they expedited creating a full statutory independence for the regulator, to ensure it could truthfully say it was independent. The normal laws that apply in the United Arab Emirates and in Dubai do not apply here in this 110 acres, and new laws have been put in place. "We sold our house in East Malvern and we've moved here indefinitely. We brought quite a lot of our stuff with us, so when you walk into our home it could be, not quite like East Malvern, but just about anywhere. We live near a park in a stand-alone villa in Jumeirah (a beachside suburb in Dubai's north) in an area that's not particularly expat. "It's a very dusty place, the sand is always blowing about. I've got to be honest, it's a very long summer. It starts getting hot by May and then it just gets hotter (up to 44 degrees). It lasts through to November. Your house is air-conditioned, you move from the front door to the car, you drive to the office, come up in the lift and you're back in air-conditioning. You basically don't go out much during the summer. Even the nights are very hot. It has to be remembered that Dubai is built on a desert - an incredible accomplishment, but obviously it has a very different feel to a green and leafy city like Melbourne. "Of course the UAE is an Islamic country and it is impossible to be unaware of cultural differences. There is a strict observance of the four daily prayer times and all offices and public buildings (including shopping malls) have prayer rooms for that purpose. No one lives very far from a mosque, the principle being that the call to prayer should be audible to all. The holy day is Friday, so the working week for us starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday. It does take some adjustment to get used to this different weekly cycle. "The tradition of hosting an evening meal for male friends in their special room (majlis), where the meal is eaten from cushions or low divans, is still widely observed. It reflects a culture that has grown from strong family and tribal loyalties; the sharing of information and settlement of disputes through meetings and informal processes; and the high priority that the Arabs place on hospitality. It is a privilege for westerners to be invited to the majlis and I have enjoyed the experience, although for someone used to early nights it was a bit of a shock to learn that during (the fasting period) Ramadan, majlis started at 1am."Dubai is very tolerant and liberal in its attitude to expats. It has none of the restrictive features that apply in more conservative countries in the region. Alcohol is readily available (but expensive) at hotels and similar venues but is forbidden in public spaces. There is zero tolerance for drink driving (the roads are dangerous enough without that!). Certainly most Arab women wear traditional dress in public, including a hijab to cover the head and often also the face. However, you can be pretty certain in private they will be wearing jeans or the latest designer fashions."
© 2006 The Age