Dubai is still positioning itself as the world's trading hub

When an electric kettle rolls off the assembly line in Guangdong, its journey is only just beginning. From that assembly line it will travel by truck to the port of Hong Kong where a freighter will carry the kettle to a distant Middle Eastern port.

Whether bound for Cairo's Khan el-Khalili market or a Riyadh Carrefour, the kettle will likely see Dubai on its journey. Dubai has always been a regional trading centre and, in the last decade, it has emerged as the third-largest trans-shipment centre in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore. With a 2008 throughput of 11.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) - an 11% increase year-on-year - the emirate's two ports are the busiest in the nearly 10,400 kilometres between Singapore and Rotterdam.