Page 197 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

194 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

the end of 1972 the population was estimated to have risen to 320,000 A
second census in 1975 produced a figure, according to report, of 655,937 for
the total population. To anyone acquainted with the general level of compe­
tence in the administration of the shaikhdoms the precision of this computa­

tion comes as something of a surprise. How it was arrived at and what it
signifies it is impossible to say, for a blanket of secrecy has since been thrown
over the detailed findings of the census. The reason for the secrecy is not hard

to discern: it is to maintain the fiction that the original inhabitants of the UAE
still outnumber the immigrant population, the Uitlanders, a fiction that in its
turn is necessitated by considerations of political and economic power and the
retention of this power by die native Arab population. Just how much is
involved economically may be seen from the figures for oil production and

revenues over the past few years. Abu Dhabi’s oil output, the majority of it
from on-shore fields, rose from 1,302,000 barrels per day in 1973 to 1,414,000
b/d in 1974 and 1,600,000 b/d in 1976, a figure that exceeded Kuwait’s

production in that year. Dubai’s output from its off-shore field rose from
219,000 b/d in 1973 to 276,000 b/d in 1975 and 350,000 b/d in 1976. The
increase in revenues was even more striking: Abu Dhabi’s and Dubai’s com­
bined income from oil in 1971 was something over $800 million. The UAE’s
income from oil in 1976, by which time Sharjah had become the third oil-

producing shaikhdom with an output of 50,000 b/d from an off-shore field,
was $8,600 million, more than ten times what it had been five years earlier.
At the time of the 1968 census the population of Abu Dhabi was around
46,000, of whom only half were native tribesmen. Even allowing for a rapid

natural increase in the 23,000 or so indigenous inhabitants, they cannot now
number more than 30,000 at most. It is much the same story in Dubai, where
the population in 1968 was about 59,000, half of them native to the shaikhdom.
Again, allowing for rapid natural growth, the indigenous inhabitants probabl}
number under 40,000. In contrast, in the non-oil shaikhdoms of the UAE the

native population in 1968 was proportionately much higher, 93 per cent in as
al-Khaimah and 98 per cent in Fujairah. Of Trucial Oman’s (or the U s
total population of 180,000 in 1968 roughly 120,000 were native-born, t is

doubtful whether it has increased by more than a third since then, whic won
make it about 160,000 today. If the census figure of 1975 is even
accurate, it means that the immigrants outnumber the indigenous popu
by at least two to one - or even by as much as three to one, as is sai to

case in Abu Dhabi. ealthiest
Most of the immigrants to the UAE are concentrated in the 7^ tern
shaikhdoms - Abu Dhabi, Dubai and, to a lesser extent, Sharja . $
of immigration has been much the same as it was earlier in the 01 sta

upper Gulf. At the lowest level are the Persians, Pakistanis (main y
Omanis and latterly Yemenis, who labour on the construction (other
form all the menial tasks. Above them are the Indians and a