Millhouse

I feel sorry for you guys being restricted to exploring dry river beds. I've always swam in lots of water (except on holiday of course).

DXBtoDOH

Someone should do a remake of Priscilla and set it in Oman.

Actually, not a bad movie concept. A group of drags in Dubai for a performance and they set off for Muscat and they take the wrong turn and their caravan breaks down in the mountains and they set off for the local village via a wadi and get stuck in the wadi due to impenetrable rocks/pools of water and squabble and are rescued by Omani boys and later at the village they're placed with the Omani women because the elders think they're women, and they give fashion tips, and the truth comes out and...well...I'll let you create your own ending.

mission

I HATE YOU ALL!!

carcajou

I would concur with that - if the position is really $$$, go for it. But Doha is a lot smaller than both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and Qatar is a lot smaller than the UAE - Qatar/Doha are basically a city-state without many outlets.

It's for that reason I think the World Cup is going to be a fiasco. People plan these things with vacations of a lifetime - you go to South Africa to see your team but also go to the parks, you go to Germany to see your team and also all the other sites. What will they do in Qatar? That's even if the blockade has ended, because getting to the UAE or Bahrain is not convenient regardless.

DXBtoDOH

The other thing to keep in mind is that Qatari clients are even more obtuse and difficult than UAE clients. It's all public sector clients here and they do what they want to do, regardless of contractual t's and c's. Well, UAE government agencies do, too, but they're a bit better.


Ironically Dubai will have the last laugh as the party will always be in Dubai and people will fly over to Doha on the day they have tickets for but spend the rest of the time in Dubai. But if the embargo is still in place, then Qatar's lost a huge portion of their valid market - other GCC nationals. Europeans won't be flocking to Qatar.

CountingStars

Qatar is every bit still as attractive to me as an expat city to live and work in. I visit Doha every so often and each time it gets better. They are investing big in the city and the last I heard no infrastructure projects have been effected by the blockade and life for the expats goes on as normal.

DXBtoDOH

It's improved from being a shithole to a marginally better shithole, I'll grant you that.

Or should it be a slightly less of a shithole?

jam25mack

Maybe not effected by the blockade but Doha has been on a downward spiral since the oil price dropped. Several of the large construction projects have been dropped like a hot potato. The amount of work we did on the bay crossing only to have it never mentioned again is a prime example.

Also, the WC will be a disaster.

co durham boy

Have you been reading the Gulf Times ? Qatar is one trick pony and the trick is well and truly played out. The blockade is having a major effect , just ask the residents buying day to day items and the availability of those.

Construction materials are also dwindling especially as most of the rock and aggregate comes from the UAE. Qatari's couldn't organise a piss up in brewery and that's why the country is such a shithole.

ASK THE LAW

For expatriates, a right job means just to move anywhere in the world. Qatar is revising the immigration policies like No Visa for few countries' expatriates etc. So an expatriate can moves to Qatar from UAE if he or she is offered a good opportunity there, despite few facts when someone is in love with UAE like me
Comment totally based on personal opinion.

DXBtoDOH

FYI I just discovered that Qatar stops selling booze ten days before Eid.

Tells you all you need to know.

co durham boy

That's been law for over 3 years now. Plus it will be dry the first two days of Eid

CountingStars

We all have different networks with different perspectives but according to my network of friends in Doha the biggest change on the ground has been in dairy and chicken suppliers! Qatar stands out as the best performing economy in the GCC and that is projected to continue. Read Bloomberg news on Qatar for the latest analysis.

carcajou

Here is the thing that has to be understood with the blockade: Qataris (and other Gulf peoples) do not live like Westerners do, and they are not an urban people even if they may spend their weekdays at a crash pad in Dubai, Doha etc.

The first chance they get, they abandon Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and go out to their desert camps and farms.

Once at the desert camp, their Subcontinent staff kill off one of their goats/camels etc or gets some fish (fresh caught or, unlike the livestock, bought from a shop), serves it to them with rice, and they drink milk from their own herds of camels.

That was largely how MERS was spreading a few years ago, and why it predominantly affected locals - unpasteurized camel milk.

So, the blockade on foodstuffs etc - this impacts Westerners and people from the Subcontinent and Levant/MENA, but not so much on locals, who largely have their own food stocks.

To be successful the blockade must impact LOCALS. They don't care about Westerners, people from the Subcontinent or even people from the other Arab countries.

Where it might start to impact them, is if the locals get tired of not being able to have their long weekends in Dubai, Riyadh and Bahrain. Istanbul is a poor substitute and the locals consider it exotic; Muscat, too far away and the Gulf Arabs there are quite different (in social caste) from the ones in the UAE/Qatar/KSA.

More to the point, Qatar is still a tiny country and if Qatari Citizens got barred from investments in other Gulf countries, that would bite. Ca$h is king and nowhere is that understood better than in the Gulf.

But, they are not going to back down just because foreigners can't get their choice of milk or chicken at the supermarket.

DXBtoDOH

And diet coke. Don't forget that too.

There's been massive redundancies across the board since the beginning of the year (last year actually). Ever since the oil price collapse economy has been crappy in Qatar. Rent prices have declined noticeably. Fewer people around. Few new people coming in.

Who cares of Qatar can play with the numbers to look better in some regards than much bigger economies but on the street it ain't rosy.