This will be the most important financial gathering ever to be held in the Middle East. So it is appropriate that we will be announcing details during the meeting of one of the most important financial launches ever to take place in the Middle East. Our main message is to show everybody what the DIFC is all about. What the DIFC will do is create for the first time in this region the sort of financial capital market that CEOs attending the IMF/World Bank meetings take for granted in London, New York and Tokyo. They will be able to hear at first hand that legislation, transparency and regulations are based on the best practice in the major jurisdictions. Only the tax rates will be different - probably the lowest for any serious onshore jurisdiction.

The approval of the federal decree was announced in July, several months later than planned, and still awaits enactment. What was the reason for the delay? When will the first licences be awarded and when will the financial exchange become operational?

One has to remember this has not been done before. But the UAE and Dubai are committed to the project and its success. The UAE authorities and the DIFC itself have moved very quickly to be in a position to launch a world-class international financial centre in a little more than a year. There has been no delay - though I do admit we were a little too optimistic at first in our calculations on timing. In particular, the sheer volume of legislation that has had to be drafted could not be completed in just a few months. We have the main federal decree in place but we need to finish work on the quite-detailed Dubai decree, as well as the remaining market and corporate laws. We already have a number of licence applications even before we are in a position to sign them. The signing of the first licences will be soon, though I cannot be specific on dates. Our target for a fully operational regional financial exchange is the final quarter of 2004.

Which aspects of the DIFC do you think will be most attractive to international institutions? What sort of targets have you set for attracting the blue chips?

My own background is in asset management and I can see very clear advantages in setting up asset management operations here. Our region generates vast amounts of capital to invest in assets and there will no longer be a good reason why it should nearly all vanish from our own region. But I can see too that some of the innovative features will also prove to be popular. Islamic finance has developed in very sophisticated ways in recent years and is set to be an increasingly important feature of global finance. We are trying to add value to the whole region. If Bahrain, for example, is doing such things too, it just creates more opportunities for the people and for investors. We want to complement. We have already been talking to most of the world's top 200 financial institutions and have been gratified with responses even before we can show them all our world-class legislation and regulations. We do not comment on licence applications until we are in a position to issue the licence, but I can say that a significant number are already in the pipeline. By the end of next year there could be about 11 major institutions and this number should be increasing in the second year. Our final target is 200 institutions.

Four of the most frequent criticisms of the DIFC are: it's just another free zone; it's nothing more than another Dubai real estate play; it's another Saadiyat in the making; and it's unnecessary with Bahrain already offering - with a proven track record - most of what the DIFC will. How do you respond?

The DIFC is much more than a free zone. That is why we have taken such trouble to adapt the best laws and regulations of London and Wall Street to Dubai. If one looks at the DIFC as a whole today, out of 110 employees we have three people working in real estate. If we were a real estate play, would these numbers not be different? Within the regulatory area we have 40 people and within the company operations we have more than 60. This reflects our vision. The real estate area is our balance sheet, our capital, so we have to protect it and make sure it works. Of course, the financial district is a brilliant real estate opportunity. No other financial district of this scale has been free to provide all the facilities that institutions want and avoid all the drawbacks, because others needed to be designed around existing properties. We are building from scratch. But from what I have said one can see that there is much more to the DIFC than just excellent property. We have learnt from the problems that earlier efforts at market building encountered. In particular, we have created the DIFC on the same lines as financial centres such as London, Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Everything a business decision maker expects in those centres he can also take for granted in our centre. The culture of the DIFC is that of global finance rather than regional custom. We wish Bahrain well and have great respect for what they have achieved, but our vision and our concept are very different. n