The Scotsman - Business - How the road from Fife led to the blue waters of the Gulf

From a May 2, 2005, article by Colin Donald (use title link to read the full article):

ABUZZING trade hub in an oil-bloated, conservative region, Dubai has thrived on odd contrasts.

No other economy in the world shows faster growth than its 17 per cent 2004 GDP rise. No other economy pipes in more speculative cash or attracts more fortune-seeking labour from the developing or developed worlds.

Few other governments, autocratic, Islamic or otherwise, offer more inducements to financiers, traders and pleasure seekers to buy into its self-fulfilling hype as the new hub of the 21st century.

Thrown into sharp relief against this razzmatazz is Douglas Dowie, general manager of the National Bank of Dubai. Severe, ultra-discreet, humour as dry as the desert, the banker from Leven cuts a unlikely figure as top moneyman in a gold-rush economy.

But Dowie’s reserve masks big ambitions, the first mostly achieved already; for Dubai to surpass Bahrain as the regional financial nerve centre...