SALON

Saturday, Jan 5, 2013 3:30 PM UTC

AP Photos: Dubai makes bid to be City of Gold

By

Topics: From the Wires,

AP Photos: Dubai makes bid to be City of GoldIn this Thursday Oct. 11, 2012 photo, a customer uses his calculator to convert a jewelry price at a jewelry shop in the gold suq in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai is building itself up as a center for the gold trade, between the resources in Africa and consumers in the rising economies of China and India. “There's no doubt the geographical location of Dubai has played an important factor," said Malcolm Wall Morris, CEO of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, that set up by the emirate to oversee the trade. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)(Credit: AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai is sometimes called the “City of Gold” because of its stunning growth from a sleepy Gulf port to a world-famous business crossroads in the space of a single generation. Its nickname has a literal meaning for traders in the precious metal.

The city is building itself up as a center for the gold trade, between sources in Africa and consumers in the rising economies of China and India.

Dubai now has about a 29 percent market share of global gold trade with nearly 1,200 tons — worth about $41 billion — changing hands at the city’s gold markets, according to the gold industry website bullionstreet.com.

That’s up from around $6 billion worth traded in the emirate in 2003, said Malcolm Wall Morris, CEO of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, set up by the emirate to oversee the trade. “There’s no doubt the geographical location of Dubai has played an important factor,” he said.

Dubai’s tax-free status has made it one of the cheapest places to buy gold in the world. The emirate has set up gold refineries and vaults and jewelry-making facilities, importing gold — including scrap from India — and melting it down to produce gold bars. At the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange, traders and speculators buy and sell the metal on the futures market.

Gold prices remained relatively steady in 2012, close to $1,700 an ounce. Some traders predict prices could once again rise toward the record high of nearly $1,900 an ounce, as central governments and investors look to gold as a safe bet in the unsteady world economy.

The city has also become a retail center with 600 shops selling gold — half of them crammed into the gold souq, drawing tourists, traders and local residents.

Lola Oyekola, from Lagos, Nigeria, came to Dubai especially to buy gold.

“Because I know I will get what I want, unique ones,” she said. “I can tell them what I want and they will make it for me.”

More By Kamran Jebreili.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations