Dubai, new investments for image and development

Dubai puts forth 127 million euros and announces three new projects for the tourist and commercial development of the emirate: a new port for the 450 "dhows", the traditional wooden vessels employed in the exchange with neighbouring Iran, connection to the sea for the lake and the lagoons of Business Bay, the residential district in front of the financial area of Burj Khalifa, and a Safari Park on over 400 hectares of land which will take over the current zoo, the first ever built in that region. The Dhow Wharfage Project, an investment of 40 million euros, will be built between Palm Deira and Deira Corniche, at the foot of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, an integrated structure which will extend for three kilometres and articulated into 30 loading/unloading areas creating an overall capacity of 1.7 million tons of cargo each year. The pier will be 2 metres deeper (7 metres) than the currently overcrowded Creek wharf, the natural bay in which Dubai originated and now overpopulated by "dhows". On the busy pier where boats are also parked four rows deep, last month two dhows caught fire causing great damage to the boats nearby. A little further south in the new financial and tourist sector of Dubai, the Emirate's government has announced the connection of Business Bay to the sea through a system of "micro-tunnels" which "will improve the quality of the water thanks to a regular influx of water from the open sea". The project will be carried out in two phases during the course of two years and will see a first connection between the "bay" and the sea, and a second between the Bay and the surrounding lagoons. It is a sea-land area originally thought-out to be a sort of interior seafront with waterways which other than offering prestige and cool air will also be navigable. Also on the tourism front is the building of the Dubai Safari, an area with a similar design to the Safari Parks in Indonesia and Thailand in which over 1000 animals of over 200 species will be kept, divided into "villages" which will recreate their natural habitat, from the elephant valley to the monkey forest moving into the African savannah for the lions. The Emirate's government has already twice announced the building of an area like this, both in 2003 and in 2007, however this time it seems the work will indeed begin along Al Ain Road, the street already chosen for the work which is to begin in 2014.