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It is nice to see my new book ‘Opportunity Dubai’ recommended as Book of the Week by the Daily Telegraph Book Club and to sit at No3 in the business book bestsellers chart.

But there is a certain irony in this title, which I might as well address before some mean reviewer decides to point it out. The publication of this book coincides with a particularly rough autumn for business in Dubai, and in case you had not noticed, the rest of the world.

Have the opportunities run out in Dubai, you might well enquire. I really do not think so. One thought is that if opportunities have really gone in the commercial and trading hub of the Middle East then the rest of the world must be about to enter a massive depression. Perhaps it is, but then surely you would be better off in a wealthy city like Dubai with its customer base and business friendly culture than anywhere else?

Pearl Dubai

This week I wrote an article on the Al Fahim family’s $2.4 billion Dubai Pearl development, and how building over the next few years for the next upswing was a good business plan. Did you see the comment from a member of the Al Fahim family saying the money should have been kept in the bank and that the family was going to ruin itself?

Clearly recessions produce disagreements in family businesses over the way forward. But you know investing in a good project during bad times is good business.

If you look at AME Info, which is the case study for a part of ‘Opportunity Dubai’ then we started in the dot-com crash – hardly the greatest time for an Internet launch you might think – and just got going in time for the 9/11 advertising squeeze.

Dot-com sale

Yet we still managed to leverage the commercial and trading strengths of Dubai to eventually create a dot-com business that was sold for $27 million. I seriously believe others can do the same thing – and the same combination of dogged persistence and determination will produce success today, thanks to the leverage of a great business city like Dubai.

For however deep the downturn in progress, you can be absolutely sure that the city will recover. Trading and financial cities always do recover from downturns, and if you can get a business to work in a recession then it will thrive in the next boom.

It is a lot easier said than done, of course, but I know it can be done because I have already done it.