The usual way of building a financial centre is to provide the infrastructure and the tax breaks and to let the investors take care of finding business and skilled staff.
Qatar is approaching things differently by attempting to make education and research a key part of the country's attractiveness. Clearly it is a long-term and slow-burning strategy, but the aim is to create the knowledge base which, if lacking, undermines the credibility of financial centre aspirations. Without it, established centres such as London and New York can always belittle the efforts of newcomers.
