“...Government has been invited by a number of private sector joint-ventures involving significant local and foreign investors of good repute and business success, to facilitate the creation of additional real estate acreage off the coasts of Barbados through reclaiming lands including constructing offshore islands and constructing marinas for yachts.”
-PM David Thompson’s 2008 Budget Speech, p.86

When Prime Minister and Minister of Finance David Thompson made that statement two-thirds of the way through his 126-page budget speech almost a month ago (July 7th), I wasn’t paying much attention. In fact, I hate to admit, my thoughts had begun to wander just a little from the important matters being discussed, and in between nodding off I wondered how politicians could make such long speeches without needing a nap somewhere in between themselves.

But the statement about man-made islands caught my attention.

Oddly enough, in all the usual analysis of the policies announced, I didn’t hear much more about this revolutionary proposal, probably because it seems so far-fetched.

But having had a month to mull it over, I have come to the conclusion, my friends,  that the proposal is not as odd as it might at first seem. And I came to that point by checking out (on the Internet, of course) the precedent being set by Dubai in creating artificial islands off its own coast, and reading the central bank’s report for the half-year review of the economy.

The first effort showed me it can and is being done (despite environmental concerns in some quarters), and the second underscored the reasons why Barbados may have no choice but to “do a Dubai”.

As you know, the oil-rich but beach-poor country of Dubai is building three palm-shaped reclaimed land projects, plus another one sketching the continents and called The World, off its long, straight and boring coastline.

The first, and smallest, called Palm Jumeirah, is nearing completion, with many of the properties sold, and a monorail scheduled to open later this year. Construction of the second palm-shaped complex of islands, called Palm Jebel Ali and to be larger than the first one, is underway, while behind it is Palm Deira, ten times larger, and not yet looking anything like a palm to me. The World is also taking shape, just over ten miles away from Palm Jumeirah.  

You cannot see all of this and not be amazed at the vision and engineering skills it has taken to bring these offshore islands into being. Will our developers and planners have enough “artificial intelligence” to make similar visions come true here off our west coast shoreline?

While I can applaud Dubai to a certain extent, it should be noted that some call Dubai’s development “bizarre”, saying it is closer to Las Vegas in terrain and audacity than probably anywhere else, and there is no doubt that its massive construction projects are being produced on the backs of thousands of badly-treated labourers who have few rights once they get there.

But Barbados may have no choice but to look seriously at the Dubai model, giving our current reliance of the foreign exchange brought in by luxury real estate projects, without which we would be sunk.

And things are not getting easier for us, given rising oil and commodity prices and fears of recession in our key tourism-producing markets. The Central Bank’s changing outlook for the rest of 2008 is captured in these two contrasting statements: (First Quarter Review, April 30th:) “The Barbados economy is projected to expand by 2.5% to 3.0% in 2008.” (Half-Year Review, July 25th:) “The current outlook is for real output growth in the range of 1.5% to 2.0%.”

I am not looking forward to the nine-month report.

The Owen Arthur administration kept our balance of payments in the black partly by turning the west coast into Townhouse Heaven for those who could afford it. The new administration has promised to put a stop to all of that land-grabbing, especially as it relates to agricultural lands (we shall see).

So here’s the problem: We have to continue allowing the upmarket developers to continue doing what they do best, but we can’t give them anymore farms and plantations, and all of the beachfront land on the west coast is now almost gone.

Hence the Dubai Solution.

Going artificial is the only intelligent choice left to us, as it was to Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai. If we don’t have townhouses and other luxury residences to sell to the wealthy, we will soon feel it in our collective piggy bank, the NIR. We will also be giving up our huge current advantage in this rarefied part of the global tourism industry, now not only being pursued by the sheik in Dubai but also our Caribbean neighbours like St. Lucia, who see the potential down the road, especially if we slow down. Our offshore sector (the financial one) would also be affected.

Yes, we can, and should, court the big name hotels and try to expand our tourism plant, but I’m told they want to build towers taller than palm trees (imagine) and to be able to put in casinos (shocking), things are unlikely to be granted anytime soon.  

That’s why I am fully expecting to see our biggest developers in the coming years not only moving the earth to please, but the sand as well.