The Dean

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/are-t...e--501787.html

OleJanx

Interesting, but the comments were the usual cracked record.

Ethos83

Silly article.

Ok, there's 100k Brits in the UAE.

Yet why does no one complain about the South Asian population in the UAE, which not only vastly exceeds the British population but is even more permanently based? Yet the Brits are the threat?

Kix

Massive chips on shoulders some people.

Personally i think it's jealousy and insecurity.

shiva

a lot of locals do complain about it, mostly the young who imagine their country can survive without them. The older ones of course know that most business done here is funneled through Indian/Pakistani?Iranian companies and they'd be ****ed without them, even more so than without us.

as an aside and because my head is full of such useless crap, the official currency here used to be the rupee and most of the pearl diving industry was driven by India, locals in dubai were pearl divers with the occasional boat owner but the vast majority of traders and boat owners were Indian.

the_red_sheep

The tired clichés about all Brits being sunburnt and/or drunk rolled out at the start immediately put me off the rest of the article. And the statement '...I’ve been told by taxi drivers, locals and even the British themselves that “there are just too many Brits in the UAE”...' I just find completely unbelievable. I've never heard this said or even implied by anyone here.

Even the conclusion that, because there are half a dozen Brits in senior positions in a few local companies everything is ok, really just seemed rather simplistic and contrived, not exactly ground breaking journalism.

shiva

the thing i really love about the expat out argument is that if 99% of the population work for the government and we all left, who exactly would they be governing and what would they do in these jobs, mind you i often wonder what half of them do on any given day anyway

Norm_uk

Indeed, most expats have jobs and work hard and avoid trouble. On top of this even staying long term is only feasable with a job. There are no state handouts or passports even after decades. It's a totally different situation to the UK for example.

It's mostly younger locals who think they know everything (like most young people everywhere). Most locals don't mind expats as long as they work and respect UAE law because they know they can kick them out anytime they like...again, unlike the UK where we can't seem to kick out people who scream from the rooftops about how much they hate us and our society before going to collect benefits for them and their families.

N.

NorthernLad

More bad press....

"We come from different backgrounds [and] sometimes they [foreign cultures] are imping on each other. They should be in line with each other. Sometimes they are not aware or ignorant of this. This applies to all communities, but to be candid and frank, it’s probably usually Britons."

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/ge...ture-1.1188172

NorthernLad

...and some interesting statistics:

On average, an expat pays some Dh2,500 annually to the UAE government in various fees

– but the state spends about Dh14,000 on each expat per year.

60 per cent of Zayed University students polled in a recent survey are “not afraid” of expats’ presence and impact on Emirati society

48 per cent of ZU students feel the success story of the UAE is possible without expats

47 per cent of ZU students feel this is not possible


http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/ge...-uae-1.1188229

Seriously??? How does that 48% feel about working as cleaners, cooks, petrol attendants, shop assistants, construction workers etc...

shiva

they don't feel, these people are invisible to them and thus they haven't even considered the ramifications of their removal. hilarious really

scrubbedexpat141

Tripe.

Way too short to even scratch the surface of the argument.

the_red_sheep

I would love to know what they UAE state does with my 14k, because I'm not seeing any of it!

My only thought is that this is on the provision of local services (street lighting, cleaning etc...) when split by head of population???

The figure would be meaningful if there was also a figure for the amount the state spends per annum on each local, and the economic benefit derived by the state per expat and per local - that would make interesting reading.

nateusa

all i want from expats to say what the first bloke commented on.

NorthernLad

I think municipality tax on the DEWA bills covers that.

I have no issue with these 'hidden' taxes...my feeling is that the students have no idea about what expats contribute in taxes (cut out the alcohol here and see how much the tax coffers go down...the markup is astounding on alcohol...not to forget how much Dubai Duty Free makes on booze).

The bigger issue is that they just seem to think that all expats are Europeans/Americans/Aussies, they forget the vast majority are low-income workers.