Abu Dhabi is chasing the status of a cultural hub and high-end tourist destination
© AFP/File DUBAI (AFP) - Riding on windfalls from record high oil prices, the wealthiest of the United Arab Emirates' seven members is starting to rival Dubai, its glamorous neighbour which has gained global fame through grandiose projects such as the world's tallest tower and palm tree-shaped man-made islands.
Following the death in November 2004 of its ruler and UAE founding president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, Abu Dhabi, which serves as the Gulf federation's capital, opened its purse to local and overseas investments ranging from French cultural icons to US banking giants.
Whereas Dubai focused on entertainment, the southern Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi began by chasing the status of a cultural hub and high-end tourist destination as it propels itself onto the world map.
A branch of France's prestigious Sorbonne university opened in the emirate in 2006 and an outpost of the Louvre museum is to follow in 2012.
A Warner Brothers theme park is in the pipeline, and construction of the world's first Ferrari theme park began on Yas island off Abu Dhabi last November.
The park is set for completion in 2009, and will include a motor circuit which is to host the emirate's first F1 Grand Prix, also next year.
Construction of the Ferrari park started two years after Mubadala Development Company, an investment group owned by the Abu Dhabi government, purchased five percent of the Italian sports car manufacturer for 114 million dollars.
Sulaiman al-Fahim (R) is the new owner of Manchester City football club
© AFP/HO/FileEarlier this week, Abu Dhabi scored another coup in the sports arena when one of its investment groups announced the takeover of English Premier League side Manchester City.
The club wasted no time signing Brazilian striker Robinho for a fee understood to be a British record of 32 million pounds (57 million dollars).
The club was bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment, a group of investors led by presidential affairs minister Sheikh Mansur bin Zayed al-Nahayan, a brother of President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.
The club's new owner, Emirati tycoon Sulaiman al-Fahim, said he hoped the buyout would help make Abu Dhabi a "global sports capital" and that his group planned to buy more clubs outside Britain.
The deal was still making world headlines when Abu Dhabi sprang another surprise by announcing it will work with Hollywood and other movie hubs on producing eight award-winning films a year.
Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a firm set up by Abu Dhabi Media Company, will "spend in excess of one billion dollars over the course of the next five years in the creation of both full-length feature films and digital content," the parent company said on Wednesday.
A branch of France's prestigious Sorbonne university opened in the emirate in 2006
© AFP/File"We are bringing Hollywood and the international production community to Arabia," CEO Edward Borgerding enthused.
The scale and diversity of the ventures reveal the ever growing ambitions of the emirate, whose ruler, Sheikh Khalifa, was ranked by Forbes magazine in August as the world's second richest royal sovereign with a fortune of 23 billion dollars.
Abu Dhabi also controls the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) with assets of up to 875 billion dollars.
Last November, ADIA paid a cool 7.5 billion dollars to become one of Citigroup's major shareholders as the US bank reeled from the US housing downturn.
The move came just two months after the fund acquired a 7.5 percent stake in the Carlyle Group, one of America's biggest private equity firms, for 1.35 billion dollars.
©AFP