I keep hearing that the UAE is slowing down. But there are many signs that it's going OK, and many signs that's its in the gutter. How is it for you?

It was a toss-up between the second and third options but went for the third. Slowing but surviving.

I'm active on the tender side and just about every tender keeps getting extended. Clients (mostly government) are postponing decisions, seemingly forever.

But we have other major contracts that will keep us alive for at least the next four-five years even if we don't win any tenders in the meantime!

I think "Slowing and struggling" describes us aptly - especially as the GCC equity markets and obviously the oil prices have tanked - i think 2016 is going to be a difficult year for investments (Im still sticking to my guides that oil will hit the $35-$39)

Suicidal nearly.

We're busy on certain things but projects aren't being released to be designed and then build. Projects are being built, but by shite companies to keep certain families happy.

New projects aren't coming on to the market, hence why major design / engineering firms are shedding staff in bulk.

There's work there to keep it looking busy but they were designed years ago and are being built on the cheap. Expo will shrink massively and won't keep everyone busy.

I'm almost in suicidal mode as well. There is only so much making the work fit the day I can do before I start leaving early to cook things in my slow cooker.

Unless I seriously f(ck up, or someone with better Pyramid Mafia connections comes along, Im pretty well sorted right now. Client screws up enough to make this 5 year project look like a 12 year marathon..!!

I've been utterly swamped yesterday / today but not with stuff here - in India and New York. I love making calls at midnight.

story of my life. working day starts at 6pm today.

We've had quite a few people cut. Think I'm safe at the moment.

Nearly all our business is with Nigeria. The combination of slumping oil prices and a new President who refuses to accept that the naira needs to be devalued means that business has been pretty much strangled down there. FX controls means it's pretty much impossible to import anything including petrol. That's why there are now massive petrol queues down there even though there are huge quantities of Petrol/Diesel sitting in tankers waiting off the Togolese coast for importation into Lagos.

coming to Egypt again soon.

Definitely number 3.

We have enough business to keep us going and adding more business in Africa mainly, but won tenders (in GCC especially) tend to take forever to be signed and existing contracts are being randomly audited (sometimes with threats of them being revoked if costs are not reduced). Interesting times indeed..

Have you guys noticed how the mix of people in Dubai has changed over the last year or so?

Elaborate please

Population is still growing according to official sources, and I can believe it looking at traffic etc. However it is definitely not westerners arriving in large numbers (they are leaving as far as I can tell) so the mix is changing..

My director lives on a nice street in Umm Suqeim and has lived there for the last five or so years. All family occupied villas.

A villa a few houses down became vacant just before the summer and after languishing on the market for six months it was finally rented out. But instead of a family it seems to have been rented by a company for its employees (all Arabs). When he walks his dog past the villa at night he can see that extra bathrooms were added in the corners of the old lounge and dining room and one of the upstairs bedrooms has been divided in half. And there are 9-10 cars parked outside what is nominally a 4 bedroom+maid's villa. He thinks the residents work for the same company because they all leave at the same time and return around the same time.

Does it suggest that the economic forces are shifting towards a larger but lower paid work force so that even prime neighbourhoods (and greedy landlords) are running out of higher paid expat families?

this shift has been going on for years. The mosque at the ranches (a captive one) went from almost unused, to packed packed packed.

Interestingly, it's now very very hard to get a visa for an arab. So this will slow.