UAE: Two royal visits and the mind-boggling transformation of Dubai's Jebel Ali Port

More than forty years after Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated the Jebel Ali Port in 1979, her grandson, Prince William, became the second British royal to visit the harbour on Thursday.

If it was a British royal yacht, HMY Britannia that docked at the port with Queen Elizabeth II onboard forty-three years ago on February 26, The Duke of Cambridge arrived at the port along with a cavalcade of shining vehicles.

In 1979, the village of Jebel Ali was a meagre accommodation for port workers, and it had a population of 300 people.

But what awaited the Duke of Cambridge was the most advanced logistical facility anywhere globally with sprawling million container yards, cargo storage and the busiest container movement in the Middle East.

Jebel Ali Port handle 80% of Dubai’s trade volume.

It has 22 million TEU capacity across four container terminals. There are 100 berths across 25 kilometres of quay for container, liquid, general cargo and RORO terminals. The largest port between Rotterdam and Singapore, Jebel Ali Port, facilitated USD 104.2 billion worth of trade in 2020. It is home to 100 of the world’s Fortune 500 companies and contributes 33% of Dubai’s GDP.

Prince William was given a demonstration of how Port authorities scan containers and prevent the illegal trafficking of wildlife – a cause The Duke is fighting. He watched how inspectors busted an attempt to smuggle a tusk.

"The sheer scale of Jebel Ali Port is phenomenal," the Duke tweeted soon after the visit.

"Heralded the ‘engine’ of Dubai, this is one of the busiest ports in the world, seeing thousands of containers and cargoes go through it everyday," he said.

During the visit, The Duke was shown the scale of operations at the Middle East's largest port and observed a demonstration of cargo being unloaded from container ships by crane, scanned for suspicious items and inspected by customs. He saw how cargo is being unloaded, the journey through the customs, and how cutting edge technology is deployed to identify trafficked wildlife items.

The Duke is the founder of the United for Wildlife, working in the region to facilitate public-private partnerships in the UAE to help stop the illegal trade of wildlife, and DP World is Principal Partner.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sumatra, Group Chairman and CEO of DP world said, "As a leading global logistics business, we recognize the important need to address the rising concerns posed by the illegal wildlife trade, which not only impacts biodiversity, but has ramifications for our planet and local communities."

"We are taking extensive measures to tackle the issues, including collaborating with United for wildlife and technology companies to develop processes to improve the detection of illegal wildlife cargo."

In the afternoon, Prince William will visit Expo 2020 and meet Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai and also attend the UK National Day Celebrations. He will listen to pitches from innovators of the Earthshot Prize and also interact with young Emiratis.