That Dubai has recovered from the painful economic slump and debt restructuring that began in 2009 has quickly become an undisputed fact. Economic growth in the first half of 2013 was almost 5 per cent. Travel through the emirate and within it has picked up considerably over the past few years, as traffic at Dubai’s airport and on its roads attests.

Rising property prices and the return of grandiose real estate schemes suggest that despite many investors being burned in 2009, it has not put them off returning now.

The challenge Dubai faces is how it tackles the impending repayments due on all the debt it has restructured. Dubai is thought to have $50bn of debt repayments due over the next three years. Dubai World, the government investment vehicle at the heart of the emirate’s debt crisis, faces repayments of about $4.5bn in 2015.

At a creditors meeting earlier this year, Dubai World was urged to speed up asset sales to help it fund this repayment. Plans to sell Palm Utilities, a district cooling company, to Empower, another cooling firm owned by Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa), suggest the company was listening.

It is also perhaps indicative of how Dubai could tackle its impending debt repayments. Few now expect the debt due in 2015 to be fully repaid. A more likely option is that part of it will be repaid, and the rest restructured again to give the government a few more years to wait for asset prices to rise.

Assets that the government may not want to divest can be passed from one arm of the state to another, allowing entities such as Dubai World to pick up a windfall that it can use to appease its creditors.

Were it not for the emirate’s economic recovery, creditors may not have fallen for this strategy. Now that Dubai is once again a growing city, they probably will.