Dubai’s rapid growth is overtaking its infrastructural capacity, according to Hussain Nasser Lootah, assistant director general of building and planning for Dubai Municipality.

The emirate’s population has grown at an average annual rate of 6.4 per cent and the number of cars on the road by 10 per cent each year, as opposed to an international average of 2 to 3 per cent. He was addressing industry leaders at Meed’s second ‘Major Project Developments in Dubai’ conference.
Lootah said: “Projects in Dubai are so fast-moving that the infrastructure, including the roads, public transport, and utilities cannot keep up.”
The government has spent a total of $2.5 billion on the city’s network of roads up to the end of 2004, covering an ever-increasing total of 9,600 km. “It is not the lack of roads that is necessarily the problem, but the general mismanagement of the travelling system,” said Lootah.