The Hindu Business Line : Glittering showpiece in the Middle East

Just a year ago, they built it, spending $90 million. In less than two years from now, they are going to abandon it. For an average Indian, given to weighing every spend, this West Asian extravaganza might be a shocker, but it looks like it makes sense for the Qataris.

Even as it was building the opulent, $90-million Premium Terminal, Qatar Airways knew that it would have a shelf life of around three years, and that it would be nonchalantly thrown into disuse sometime in mid-2009, when the country’s new international airport would come into being.

But the fact that in its short life, the terminal, which offers the upper-class passengers facilities such as massage parlours, spa, sauna and Jacuzzi, would pamper the wits out of the most fastidious luxury-lover, is for Qatar Airways, value enough for its $90-million. “That is the kind of money a country would spend on PR,” says Mr Akbar Al Baker, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer. (Qatar Airways is 50 per cent-owned by the government.)

The short story of the ‘premium terminal’ exemplifies a nation-wide phenomenon of lavishness, a let-us-get-there-at-any-cost kind of attitude. The ‘Qatar modernisation’ programme is worth $130 billion. Old buildings are being razed to the ground, to make way for the modern ones.

Government statistics say that as at end of March 2004, in the city of Doha alone 812 buildings were under demolition, even as 2,563 new ones were coming up. More recent statistics are not available, but you do see buildings being pulled down all the time. For example, the residential accommodation created for Asian Games athletes are to be demolished.

Qatar sitting on the world’s largest natural gas reserves — 25 trillion cubic metres. The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2010, Qatar could own 20 per cent of the global LNG market. But until a few years ago, nobody was interested. Qatar’s Energy Minister, Mr Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, has said in other interviews that it was “bad news” that the country had only gas and no oil.

Highest GDP

Then, perhaps out of desperation, they began investing in LNG! And haven’t looked back since. Today, Qatar has the highest per capita GDP — close to $45,000. That is more than ten times India’s.

Money, Qatar has in plenty. What it seeks is Singapore-like international recognition. In this effort, spends, such as on Qatar Airways’ ‘premium terminal’, are loose change. In the quest for global fame, the challenge for this country of less than a million is to put enough economic activity on its soil.

You only need to look around to realise that Qatar is a nation in a hurry to catch up. In downtown Doha, you cannot possibly count the number of cranes in sight. Look anywhere, sunlight reflected off a glass pane of an upcoming skyscraper is sure to glint in your eye. High-rise hotels are coming up like mushrooms during rains. According to Mr Thomas Tapken, General Manager of the 5-star Movenpick hotel, the 6,000-strong inventory of hotel rooms will be doubled when all the under-construction hotels complete. Doha will then have four times as many hotel rooms as Bangalore.

Whom are they building these hotels for? Surely, the oil industry, or the upcoming petrochemical industry, is not going to bring in so many customers. But Qatar has an answer: keep some event or the other happening in the city.

First it was the Doha Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation. This alone got the country tremendous international recognition. (In Chennai, even the likes of auto-rickshaw drivers, and pavement shop owners know Doha as “the place where (Murasoli) Maran spoke.”) Then came Asian Games of 2006, for which Doha spent over $2.8 billion on new venues. In 2010, it will host Indoor Athletics meet. Come 2016, the Olympics will probably be held there. Will they win the bid? Many foreigners who live in Doha seem confident. “They will buy it,” one of them, who did not want to be identified, said. Of course, there are numerous other meets that keep happening all the time — bringing business for hotels.

New Airport

And, through Qatar Airways, Doha is connecting up. The airline, only 10 years old, flies to 80 destinations in the world. Incidentally, the 80th – Ahmedabad – was added recently. It is buying close to 200 aircraft to augment its present fleet of 59 aircraft. Qatar Airways has a tourism division – Qatar Holidays – to promote various holiday destinations across the globe, leading to higher loads for the airline.

Alongside, the new Doha international airport is coming up, at a cost of $5.5 billion. The first phase of airport will be ready in 2009. The airport will be fully built by 2015, in time for the Olympics. It is designed to have 80 passenger gates, two runways of 4.8 km and 4.2 km and a hangar that can house 13 airplanes at a time. About 60 per cent of the 22.5 km airport will be built on land reclaimed from the Persian Gulf.

However, there is also a view that the country may not yet be quite ready for a Dubai-like cosmopolitan makeover. On the streets, no local woman walks by herself — indeed, women are seen only in shopping malls, invariably burkha-clad and rarely single. Couples in a huddle — forget it. In contrast, the botanical gardens in Singapore, for example, is a lovers paradise. There is practically no night life and whatever is there is only in star hotels, catering to foreigners. Qatari men rarely wear anything but the Arab dress which, surprisingly for all the construction-dust, they keep immaculately white.

Doha is obviously a conservative society trying to embrace the Western version of modernity. And it has a good role model. After all, Dubai did it first, didn’t it?

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