No problem. Singapore would be nice... although that does suffer marginal tax and high rents.

If all you need is a well connected airport and low tax billing place then Dubai might work out. If you are thinking of setting up a company here then you will have an effective tax drag of 25-35% before rent. There are no taxes, but lots of fees...

Can I ask what you do?

Thanks.

Yes rentals in Singapore are now higher than London. I love the place but it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper than London.

Im an oil and gas trader. What do you do?

ok, so you bascially just need a high speed internet connection?

A freezone company in RAK might work out for you then. I guess you need to consider the time difference to the market that you are trading with too?

I'm in private equity & infrastructure investment.

Yes largely true although being in a place like London which has similar firms in fairly large number has its advantages. The same applies to Switzerland as well.

Being in Private Equity, I guess you worked in the City at some point?

What's the situation with rentals in Dubai? Have they come down much from the crazy boom years?

Yup 7 years in the city for my sins. I don't really miss it, apart from (maybe) the quality of the people there.

I'm in AD so not in a great position to comment on Dubai rents... but they are roughy half of what we have here and the units are generally of better quality.

A 4 bed villa in Dubai is say 150k AED - that will get you a good 1 bed flat here in AD although things are changing.

OI!! Newbie....you be nice to MM or I will find you and hurt you....don't come on the board and try to throw your weight around sweetie!

(oh! I just scared myself!! lol)

ahhh...don't worry, he secretly loves me, lmao...

MM, xx

If you don't mind me asking, what made you leave the UK?

When I first started working in the City, I always told myself that I will keep myself mobile. So I never bought a property in the UK anywhere. But now that I want to move, its not as easy a decision as I thought it would be. I've become used to certain things and I know that I'll have to give up most of those when I move - though, a lot depends on where I go.

London has its charms but the high taxes and the transport system are letting it down badly. It will only get worse as the government is now effectively bankrupt.

well, lets wait and see shall we darling... if he is nice to you..I will be nice to him, meanwhile the jury is out!!! xxx

for me, I left in pursuit of carried interest. That doesn't look like it will happen now but I've come to quite like this place and so will stay on for a bit longer.

London is my home and I will probably go back one day (after a tour of some other nut case places first).

Ha ha to good infrastructure and healthy cosmopolitan atmosphere, stay in London wannabe.

On this point... unless it really affects you (the broken government) - which as a trader it doesn't really - then I wouldn't worry about it. The UK still has quite possibly the fairest and most accepting government in the world and certainly has better infrastructure than that you will find in any emerging market (especially the Middle East).

High taxes do affect me. The worse the finances of the government get, the higher the taxes will be - and this will chase capital away from the UK. People have short memories. High taxes and excessive government spending drove Britain to financial ruin in the 1970s. This time it will probably be worse. As we speak, the top tax rate in Britain is higher than any OECD country except Norway (which unlike Britain is not dependent on capital inflows as it has enormous amounts of oil and gas).

Im curious to see the responses here. Not speaking for you persoanlly, but the impression I get is that life in the ME for most of the posters here is not better than it was in the UK. So what makes people leave the UK? Im just curious.

For what I do, as you rightly noted, there are numerous options and the ME is only one of them. The fallback option for me would be to simply move back to India where I already have an extensive network of contacts (and where high taxes are not an issue. cost of living is a lot lower as well). I would probably do that in four years or so in any case. I was looking to explore a bit more before I did that.

The economics-you are calling in correctly.I think-only my opinion- the most attractive aspect revolves around safety issues.
Also,as a quiet observer, I see the ridiculously 'affected' people who can't quite meet the fees for proper private schools in UK...
Think you should venture out and give it a twirl.

Thanks. That is an interesting point of view.

I assume you mean the safety of children in schools and general safety of the streets in the cities? If those are reasons, I can certainly understand that. If I had children, I wouldn't want them anywhere near the state run schools in London (some sub-urbs may be an exception to that).

Joining this forum is the first step towards exploring the ME. I have friends who have worked in Oman and Qatar (they are engineers though and not traders) and they said they had a very comfortable life. It was after interacting with them that I became curious to see what it may be like. As I wrote earlier, a move is probably a year away even if decided to go ahead with it.