Dubai, it is said, is blessed with 360 days of sunshine a year, but it can be hard to tell sometimes. The skies seem to be permanently clouded by tonnes of dirt, thrown up by the huge building works that dominate its landscape.

Once a sleepy fishing village, the city has been transformed into a neon sweep of skyscrapers and absurdly luxurious hotels, an architect’s playground in which new billion-dollar projects rise out of the desert.

Yet its inspiration can be found far to the north. Although the sand, sun and heat has almost nothing in common with the environment of Western Europe, Dubai is pursuing an economic growth strategy that is surprisingly similar to the one used by countries such as Britain and the Netherlands to build their wealth.

Dubai wants to become a trading power and generate the kind of riches that were accumulated by preindustrial ports such as London and Amsterdam and the industrial powerhouses of Liverpool and New York.

However, Dubai does not want to trade only in goods. It is focusing on the movement of new-economy drivers such as financial services, media and tourism.

The shipping lanes of the modern world economy are in the sky and Dubai’s most audacious project is to build an airport so big that it redirects those lanes through its territory, effectively turning the city into the centre of the world. This is no megalo-maniacal fantasy but an economic ambition built on using trade as a means of creating a global business hub. Hong Kong and Singapore have demonstrated in recent decades that it is possible to become a regional power, and generate huge revenues, by following this strategy - but Dubai’s plans go much farther.

It wants to use its location as a link between Europe, Asia, India and Africa to develop the sort of trading power last enjoyed by the British at the height of empire. One of the key components of this plan is a new airport, which has been called Dubai World Central in a rather unsubtle reference to its planned role within the global economy.

The scale of Dubai World Central is staggering and puts boasts about Heathrow’s soon-to-open Terminal 5 into perspective. Dubai’s new airport, which is under construction, will cost about $33 billion (£16.1 billion) to build and will cover an area of 140 square kilometres – about the size of Cardiff. It will have six runways and the potential to handle 150 million passengers a year, more than twice Heathrow’s capacity.

Dubai also expects its airport to become the main routing point for air cargo between the European, Asian and African continents. The 16 cargo terminals at Dubai World Central will be capable of handling 12 million tonnes a year, three times more than the existing largest cargo hub at Fed-Ex’s home port of Memphis, Tennessee. Around the airport will be clusters of commercial and aerospace-related businesses, including a “humanitarian city” designed as a hub for Red Cross/ Red Crescent organisations to enable rapid response to crises in Africa or Asia. A million people are expected to live and work within what is being referred to as Dubai’s aerotropolis.

Michael Proffitt, chief executive of World Central’s Logistics City, said: “This is a 50-year vision and the great thing about it is that we can look long term and say that Dubai will have no problems growing in the future. The masterplan is in place and there will be a gradual release of each part of the airport as it is built.”

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of World Central is that Dubai has no idea whether it will need this vast capacity. The city already has an airport that will be capable of handling 70 million passengers a year by 2010 and any shock to the global economy or regional flare-up could convince cargo companies and passengers to do business elsewhere. Dubai also has to build itself into a big financial centre and continue its growth in tourism and other service industries if it is to encourage passengers to get off their aircraft in the sort of numbers needed to justify World Central.

Relatively little concern is paid to these potential pitfalls – a reflection of the very different attitude that the Gulf region has towards growth.

Dubai and the other emirate states of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar are not constrained by the need for quarterly or half-yearly reports to shareholders and can plan for the long-term.

Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, for example, put aside the land for Dubai World Central 30 years ago. The present emir, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is investing money to build the project in full knowledge that it is unlikely to start making returns until the end of the next decade.

This reflects a key thought process at work in the Gulf region. The Emiratis believe that if they build infrastructure now, demand will flow to the region to make use of it. This is the reverse of thinking in the developed world, where cautious investors usually sanction supply growth only when there is proven demand.

Everywhere you look in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha, governments are investing in the sort of infrastructure projects that most Western countries can only dream about. Qatar, for example, plans to spend $130 billion to transform Doha into a global, modern city. Given its present state, this might be a tall order, but the ambition is impressive.

The driving force for this farsightedness is the realisation that oil revenues will not last forever and a boom in oil-related revenues has provided the money to finance change.

Dubai has the smallest oil reserves and as a result has worked harder for longer to diversify its economy. Its free zones for media, science, technology, healthcare and cargo have attracted businessmen from all over the world and its hotels and fantasy-land creations, such as the man-made Palm islands, are luring tourists.

The lingering question that attaches itself to all these grand plans is: will it work? In building Dubai’s World Central aerotropolis, the seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel and the $4 billion Burj Dubai tower, the region is showing its ambitions. But have the Middle East’s sheikhs built a collection of white elephants? Or, perhaps they really have built the 21st century equivalent of the great 19th century ports – a dockside designed to carry the world’s services and its wealth creators.

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