The Dean

.......... not a paper that's known for being full of garbage.

Thursday, Jan 29, 2009

At the height of Dubai's recent boom, thousands of foreigners were arriving every day to seek their fortunes in this Gulf city of boundless ambition. Now, vehicles in the car park outside the airport gather dust as redundant expatriates abandon their wheels, fleeing home before they default on automotive loans and risk imprisonment.

Officials in the emirate were until the last few months unruffled by the credit crisis and a dramatic fall in oil prices, arguing that the services-led economy had not been affected. Indeed, they maintained, it would provide a safe haven for bankers and western companies suffering from the global downturn.

Dubai's six-year boom, which rode the regional petrodollar wave, was fuelled by the city's infrastructure and quality of life rather than by oil itself, of which the emirate has little. But the very openness of an economy built on finance and property investment now leaves it ill-placed to weather the storms raging elsewhere.
<<snip>>

bimcnorth

I must say that the standards are sinking everywhere..even at FT I must admit.

In this particular case I resent a few pieces of lazy journalistic tricks.."assets that have falled sharply" for instance, what is that supposed to mean?
DIC have lost 3 out of $13bn in assets to my knowledge which is rather okeyish compared to my pension fund..:curse:

But in general I get the feeling that the article is aimed at people having little knowledge about the region and basically just sums up a lot of earlier articles, there´s nothing new in it..and I still waits for a single newspaper to look into the Dubai - Abu Dhabi relationship in the context of two places in a single country with the ruling families very much related to each others.
That said it´s better than 99% of the shite articles about Dubai you can read all over the world...

The Dean

Mods/Admins,

Now that you've circumcised the article (you shouldn't have done so - the FT never sues anyone!), can you please delete the thread? No point to it now...........

Bob

Just because the FT doesn't sue, doesn't mean you can post...site rules and fair use and all that.

You know the rules, just stick the link to the article in and you'd be sorted.

The Dean

Well I didn't - so you can delete now, thanks.