By Team MaverickMembers:

PadminiThevanayaki

KavithaShri Muthu Vatchala

Anjali

•Dubai's GDP as of 2008 was US$ 82.11 billion.

•Revenues from oil and natural gas currently account for less than 6% of the emirate's revenues.

•Diversified from oil-reliant economy to one that is service and tourism-oriented resulting in property appreciation from 2004.

•Construction of some of the tallest skyscrapers and largest projects in the world.

•Dubai is expected to accommodate over 15 million tourists by 2015.

•Key features of the 2010 budget are the completion of the Emirate’s infrastructure projects, fostering advancements in public and social services, and improving overall security measures.

•The estimated spending on the economic sector, infrastructure and transportation is AED17.45 billion;

•The estimated allocation of government investment expenditure is AED10.7 billion for the development of infrastructure projects in accordance with set plans.

•The Dubai government’s continued commitment to infrastructure both in terms of completing existing projects and developing new ones is a light at the end of the gloomy economic tunnel.

•The Burj Al Arab's offshore success contributed to the formulation of an even grander plan: enormous artificial islands.

•Sheik Mohammed first sketched the palm design as a way to maximize beachfront property. The longest frond on the smallest island spans nearly a mile of sea and contains property on both sides.

•The state-owned company Nakheel developed plans for three palm islands and the multi-islet World.

•The smallest palm, Palm Jumeirah, accepted its first residents in the summer of 2007. David Beckham owns a plot.

•The Palm Jebel Ali, a medium-size island, is structurally complete. And the largest island, the

•Palm Deira, is still undergoing sea reclamation.

•Construction on the palm islands began in 2001.

•Divers surveyed the seabed and workers constructed a crescent-shaped breakwater from blasted mountain rock.

•The Crescent of Palm Jumeirah stands a little more than 13 feet above low tide sea level and sits in 34 feet of water at its deepest point.

•Sand, covered by an erosion-preventing water-permeable geo-textile, makes up the breakwater's lowest layer.

•One-ton rocks cover the sand, and two layers of large rocks weighing up to six tons each cap the structure.

•A "toe" placed by a floating crane sits inside the Crescent.

•The breakwater also has two 328-foot openings on each side to eliminate stagnation in the 16 narrow, deep channels.

•These gaps allow water to completely circulate every 13 days

•The Palm Jumeirah consists of a tree trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers. It will add 78 kilometers to the Dubai coastline. The first phase of development on the Palm Jumeirah will create 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments .Total cost reached US$12.3 billion

•Residents began moving into their Palm Jumeirah properties at the end of 2006. This signaled the end of phase one of construction, which includes approximately 1,400 villas on 11 of the fronds of the island and roughly 2,500 shoreline apartments in 20 buildings on the east side of the trunk.

•The first phase Atlantis, The Palm Resort, is scheduled to be completed by December 2008. Atlantis, The Palm opened on 24 September, 2008.

•Construction has also begun on the Palm Jumeirah Monorail, which will take three years to complete and will serve as a transit system between the Gateway Station at the trunk of The Palm Jumeirah and the Atlantis Station on the crescent.The Monorail opened May 6 2009.

•The Palm Jebel Ali Umar began construction in October 2002 and was expected to be completed in mid 2008.

•Once it has been completed, it will be encircled by Dubai Waterfront. The project, which is 50 percent larger than the Palm Jumeirah, will include six marinas, a water theme park, 'Sea Village', homes built on stilts, and boardwalks that circle the "fronds" of the "palm" and spell out an Arabic poem by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

•As of early October 2007, construction of the island was on schedule. The breakwater was completed in December 2006, and infrastructure work began in April 2007. Major construction will not begin until most of the infrastructure work is complete.

•In the first signs of a slowing Dubai property market, the prices of properties being sold on the Palm Jebel Ali were reported to have fallen by 40% in the two months to November 2008, with the fall being attributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–-2010.

•In 2012, the first phase of four theme parks will open on the Crescent. These parks, which together will be called "World of Discovery," will be developed and operated by the Busch Entertainment Corporation. The parks include SeaWorld, Aquatica, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove. The World of Discovery will be located at the top of the Crescent, which will form into the shape of an orca (reminiscent of Shamu)

•It was announced for development in October 2004.The Palm Deira was launched in 2004 at an estimated cost of US $3 billion.

• The first announced design was 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger than the Palm Jebel Ali, and was intended to house one million people. Originally, the design called for a 14 km (8.7 mile) by 8.5 km (5.3 mile) island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the farther out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5 km (7.76 mile) by 7.5 km (4.66 mile) island with 18 larger fronds. It will be located alongside Deira.

•By early October 2007, 20% of the island's reclamation was complete, with a total of 200 million cubic metres (7 billion cubic feet) of sand already used. Then in early April 2008, Nakheel announced that more than a quarter of the total area of the Palm Deira had been reclaimed.

•The Palm Deira was announced for development in October 2004. No timetable for completion has been announced.

•By early April 2008, 80% of Deira Island Front's reclamation was complete.

•Although the development company, Nakheel, took steps to minimize the environmental effects of construction by transporting fish and marine animals outside of the palms' breakwaters, the islands have still harmed the area's marine environment. Rocks and sand buried oyster beds and coral reefs and altered currents eroded the mainland shore. •Although five workers were swept away¬ by a wave and one drowned, the designers at Nakheel believe the breakwater will protect the palm island from average gulf weather and even an enormous storm. They even suggest that villas barely 10 feet above sea level will be safe from the rising seas of global warming.•The palm islands themselves are constructed from sand dredged from the sea floor. Palm Jumeirah is made from 3,257,212,970.389 cubic feet of ocean sand vibro-compacted into place [source: The Palm Jumeirah]. •To get the complex shape just right, designers and contractors use Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPS) to plot the palm and ensure the sand placement within 0.39 of an inch.

•Nakheel is a real estate developer in Dubai and creator of several land reclamation projects, including the Palm Islands, the Dubai Waterfront, The World and The Universe Islands.

• Its residential projects include The Gardens, International City, Jumeirah Islands and Jumeirah Lake Towers.

•Its shopping projects include the The Dragon Mart (At International City) and Ibn Battuta Mall. Its main competitor in residential development in Dubai is Emaar Properties.

•Nakheel's flagship properties are the three man-made palm tree shaped islands on the coast of Dubai.

•Nakheel operates under the umbrella of Dubai World, which manages various businesses on behalf of the Dubai government. The executive chairman of Al Nakheel is Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.

•Nakheel's portfolio of real estate include the Palm Islands (Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Deira), The World Islands, The Universe Islands, Dubai Waterfront, The Gardens, Jumeirah Lake Towers, Discovery Gardens, Lost City, Jumeirah Islands, Jumeirah Heights (a residential complex within Jumeirah Islands, Jumeirah Village, Jumeirah Park, Al Furjan, International City, Jewel of the Palm, The Golden Mile (which is in the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah), Nakheel International Hotel and Tower, another project on the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah, and Ibn Battuta Mall.

•On November 25, 2009, the Dubai government announced that Dubai World intended to "ask all providers of financing to Dubai World and Nakheel to 'standstill' and extend maturities until at least 30 May 2010".

•On December 14, 2009, the Dubai government received $10 billion in surprise aid from Abu Dhabi for debt-laden Dubai World, which said it would use $4.1 billion of it to repay its Nakheel unit's Islamic bond maturing on the same day.