Tag: financial crisis

Dubai and debt

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The whole GFC (or Global Financial Crisis for those lucky people not in the know), has reverberated through the media with as many points of view as climate change.

A few months after we arrived we heard plenty of stories about Dubai being in a whole lot of trouble.  We hoped it wasn’t on account of moving here. Despite all the gloom and doom of the time, most of it was deflected.  Not just from the local media which finds it impossible to publish a negative story, but also from the international press which first broke the “story”.

But over the last few weeks there has been a new scale of concern across the Emirate we now call home.  Stories broke in the UK about the failure of Dubai World, and the almost inconceivable debt levels. The news is now impossible to refute as it’s made  its way to our local media.

The newspapers still find plenty of positive stories about the refinancing and ongoing success of the region.  While the radio news doesn’t hide the severity at all.

Plenty of news exists about this around the web.  The following article though which was sent to me provides a little insight from an expatriate perspective.  While I don’t choose to totally subscribe to it, it provides an interesting and worrying possibility.

equally we were all united in the hope that Dubai’s unique economic, cultural and social experiment should be allowed to continue
The Guardian (6 December 2009)
http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/dubai-world-desert-gulf-investors
http://snipurl.com/tl3c6

What a weekend

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My family and I have had another hectic weekend.

Tecom

On Thursday – the equivalent of Australia’s Friday – we managed to get a viewing of our permanent accommodation at Al Barsha. Getting into there is not the finest introduction at the moment as due to the rain the ground’s mostly muddy, and there are still plenty of ad hoc signs to get you through the many construction sites in the area.  But the actual building wasn’t too bad.

As there is still a little bit of construction there was definitely no kids allowed, so Elle and I viewed the apartments in turns. I went first.  I firstly had to work out the major things such as which blocks were the ones available and what not.  There were no authorised staff around to start the lifts for me, so I was only able to climb the stairs, which meant I stopped as soon as I could work out how many flights til you got a half-decent view – which incidentally was floor 10.  After my turn, Elle just happened to bump into the facilities manager who took her to the roof so she could view the pool & BBQ area.  Despite some of my colleague’s concerns, the area was apparently not too bad.  There’s been a bit of talk at the office that the area is extremely unsafe as there’s only a 1 metre glass wall stopping you from falling the 26 floors to the ground.  But apparently C block which Elle viewed was a fair bit higher than this, and can be managed.

There’s also quite a bit of talk around the traps whether now is the right time to use company accommodation or not.  The financial crisis has dropped the values and rents of a lot of the real estate.  Allegedly villas are now at prices less than most of our accommodation allowances, so we could conceivably ditch the apartment, lease our own villa, and still get extra money in our pocket.  But you’d be at the mercy of local landlords, and have to manage all the utility costs yourself.  And who knows where prices are going next. Most papers have quite a few competing predictions.

Ski Dubai

I dropped Elle and the boys back at home, then went back to work for a few hours before picking them up again and heading off to Ski Dubai – within the Mall of Emirates.  There’s something not right with the order of things, when my son sees snow for the first time in a desert. All in all though, it was a fantastic first introduction.  We took my boss’s son who is a very competent skier. Elle had to provide some level of adult supervision as she was the only one left who could ski. I say “some level” of supervision, as Alex was zooming down the slopes like a rocket, while my wife had to initially spend some time back on the learner’s slope.

One this occasion Myles and I just visited the Snow Park, which was no problem at all.  The place was great. All the kids there were so adorable with their snow suits, boots, and helmets.  I thought some of the activities would be a bit advanced for him, but Myles enjoyed the tobaggan and donut rides immensely.  I thought they were pretty cool also, but for our next visit the two of us made a pact to learn to ski.  I should add that our baby went shopping with my boss during this time.  Apparently whenever people were watching she was boasting that Lewis was her kid. 🙂

Mall of Emirates shopping

The following day my wife was a little worse for wear from skiing for the first time in many years. We disregarded this though and hit the Mall of Emirates again, but this time only the shopping mall. My goodness!  I viewed it very quickly last November after I finished my job interviews, but I really had no idea of its actual size. The place has a bit of absolutely everything. We bought plenty of things off the shopping list, but as we’re still “setting up” it’s still outside of full scrutiny.

When we returned to our car, there was another example of Dubai’s shoddy driving.  On either side of us there were massive 4WDs over their line wedging us in.  With great difficulty I put the boys into the back, but then had to get into the passenger’s side to get out.

The Gold Souq (Market)

And today to complete the weekend a Prado load of us visited the Gold Souq. We were warned to get a ride there as there are limited parks, and they weren’t kidding. The traffic was horrendous, and there were absolutely no street parks. In the end we were lucky to get a space in the paid car park. From the street it looked like it was already oversupplied, but they managed to squeeze us in on the proviso we left our keys so they could reconfigure the place each time someone needed to leave.

The markets were nice. The constant line of people asking us to go off and look at their copied watches and handbags was no so nice after the 30-40th  suggestion.  The amount of gold on display was almost on the obscene level.  Some of the gold chains would floor Mr T. I should mention only I thought they were obscene.  My wife and boss both thought they were perfectly appropriate.  Go figure.

According to a map I saw, the gold souq was very close to the perfume, spice, and fish souqs also. But that was incorrect.  They had spice and perfumes only.  My wife may have been relieved by this, as I promised to buy equal value of fish to gold.  Actually I think the threat worked a treat, we didn’t buy any jewelry at all.  Although a bit of negotiating with shops occured, and a few business cards were collected.

We did pretty much a full round, and bought only specials which I was happy with.  We now have an authentic beautiful table runner, and a few other useful items. And contrary to a lot of the advice I received before going, we’ll certainly be back. Next time though, we’ll get a driver to drop us there.  Well, actually the next trip is (thankfully) purely for the girls,  so I mean the time after that.

Safa Park markets

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We’re in the market for a few things for Lewis rather than wait to get our stuff couriered over. So we spent yesterday at Safa Park with friends who told us about the markets they have there once a month.

I’ve been pricing most items at Mother Care – a UK based chain. The prices though for basic things like a bouncer, high chair and stroller weren’t that great. So instead we bought all these items and a few things for Myles at a fraction of the cost. But scoop sale of the day went to Paul who was with us. He picked up a full set of great condition Titleist golf clubs, bag, and brand new buggy never used for less than $150 AUD. It was such a good deal I don’t feel bad at all for stirring him at the car by asking if he knew they were left-handed. He paused with a worried look on his face before laughing out with a “You bastard!”. His family are clearly pros at this market business. His 9 year old son asked about a TV aerial or something. The shopkeeper said it was 5 AED (about $2 AUD), to which he responded, “Yeah, good luck with that” before walking off.

While the specials are great for shoppers, it was suggested it could be a sign of the financial crisis. The size of the market has grown considerably in a month, the same time that the number of expats leaving the country has gone up. Having said that, I think we’ll be back next month. I’m sure there’s something else we need ..

The afternoon finished with us video conferencing into my Nanna’s 90th Birthday party in Shorncliffe, Queensland. Although the internet connection between us was terrible, it was still great to see the whole family there to celebrate Little Chugger’s milestone. The crowd included my two cousins from the Northern Territory and their kids. We wanted to buy some party hats and blowers, but we just ran out of time. I’m still waiting for the piece of birthday cake they said they’d fax.

Wow, what workers

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I wish I had earlier taken a picture of the scene across the road. It was a vacant lot, with a base of sand – like anywhere in Dubai where there’s nothing built, or planted and given a whole lot of water.  When the shops are open, it doubled as a car park.  And then it would be fenced off at other times, and people would walk through or stand in there for a chat.  Actually, it wasn’t quite a vacant lot.  It also had a single large tree – left there for the shade I imagine.

The other night when I was walking home, despite the near darkness, the lot was quite different. Instead of seeing the light colour of sand, there was clearly a layer of something that resembled oil roughly splashed all over. I stood out the front of the complex with our security guard hypothesizing what they could be doing. We both reached the conclusion that they were probably improving the car park.

The next morning when I woke-up just as the sun was rising at 5am, there was no doubt about it. 75% of the plot was covered in bitumen. There were about 6 or 7 men rushing around in the near dark.  They had a “Bessie” (for those familiar with the animated movie ‘Cars’ featuring Lightning Macqueen’); and four or five trucks waiting in the park with bitumen in their trailers. It was absolutely amazing.  By lunch time the entire car park was completed, with lines marked and fence posts cemented in.

You see a lot of  this in Dubai. The Sheik has had such amazing and grand plans, that there really is a furious pace from everyone to get it done in time. Some industries, more obviously than others. Construction work is primarily resourced from expat Indians. I’d really not like to be working in their conditions. You see whole mini-buses filled to the brim with the workers who pile out at the work site, to be replaced by the next shift so a lot of the sites are effectively working 24 hours a day. Mind you, I think that only requires two shifts in most places. Although some friends mentioned they no longer see the lights of cranes swinging about at night like they used to.

Although the conditions look extremely tough. Apparently they have improved somewhat over the years. Allegedly a few years back, instead of packed mini-buses, the workers would be packed into the back of a caged cattle truck.  I have heard people referring to it as modern day slave-labour.

Despite this, Dubai is still a fantastic place for a lot of the workers. Although they toil hard here to earn a meagre salary, it’s a huge improvement on what they would be enduring at home.

An example of this is our security guard, Manoj.  Manoj is from Nepal, and he has my utmost respect. Each, and every, day he works a 12 hour shift. He looks tired all the time, but he always has a smile for everyone and enjoys a good chat. I don’t know how someone can do it, then I learned he has a family back home – including a baby girl.  He told me he’s going to see them again in maybe July or August this year. 12 hour shifts x 7 days a week for the next 22 weeks or so, before he can see his family again.  Lots of people talk about making sacrifices, but I doubt they really know the meaning of the word next to some of the people I see.

Due to the financial crisis, the local press has been doing a number of exposes on how some example individual residents have been affected. It even detailed their incomes, and how it’s broken down. If the figures are accurate, some of the workers here are sending 100% of their incomes home while living in basic share accommodation, and eating whatever food the company provides them – which, if you see the battalions of labourers piling out of the buses, is a pretty small plastic bag full.

Some of the people the paper interviewed were illiterate so they didn’t know anything about the financial crisis, like how it was caused. All they knew is they were getting even less money for what they did before.

It’s a bleak picture I’m painting, but it’s one that still looks on the bright side of life. Despite working crazy hours here for not much, huge distances away from their families, these people are able to provide for their family like they may not have imagined back home. And still remain quite happy throughout it. Kudos and big props to them.