Boom time in August

It seems that most of the UAE expatriate nationals have decided to stay and spend their summer vacation in Dubai. This is fantastic for the local economy which normally witnesses a mass exodus from July onwards until schools return in September. With the credit crunch taking it’s toll I was dreading the thought of more shops facing closure.

It was pleasant surprised to see the Arabian Ranches golf club restaurant rammed on a Thursday night. Families were having a marvelous night and generally the mood was one of enjoyment.

It is also good to see bars that a year ago would never be full receiving a boost in trade in the summer months. This I think is due tot he fact that most expats are looking for good value for their evenings out.

On the other side, most of the 5 star hotel restaurants are empty. Tourists seems to suffer, a family of four could easily expect to have a bill of around GBP 135 bill* for dinner.

Which leads me onto the following thought. Why is it possible to get a 30% discount in the restaurants? This discount applies on all food and beverages.

I guess the margin that these establishments were receiving was massive, but does a promotional discount offer really help restore their credibility in terms of providing tourists and expats value for money?

Life is definitely better in the Gulf than back home and to be honest, Dubai has definitely started to look better that some other nations at the moment, though I do worry that this could be potentially a W recession and we are just entering a minor peak in what could be a worse downturn.

Lets hope that this is not the case, as 2010 will become a very tough year for the globe. Are we currently witnessing the restoration of house prices in the economy? Will we see liquidity returning to the banking sector and lending ressuming normal levels based on sound risk management principles?

Only time will tell.

*Based on 2 starters, 2 soft drinks, 2 alcoholic drinks, 4 main courses and a pudding

The American Hosiptal in Dubai

This weekend Mrs B and myself headed down to the American Hosiptal for a very late in the day Ante-Natal class. The class was an additional 1,500 dihrams and include lunch, teas and coffees.

It was hosted by an experienced midwife and mother of two Furooz, who was orginally from Iran. It was a fantastic experience and really an eye opener into the new world that Mrs B and I decided to sign up to.

The main issues that were discussed for the two days were pain and pain management and also the wide variety of drugs that are available to mothers to be.

Interestingly enough Pethedine is a controlled drug in the UAE and as such it reqiures two people to sign a register and administor the drug to the patient. I have visions of nuclear warfare and arming codes appearing before complete world disasters as you see in the movies! Probably the same feeling I will be having at the same time.

Having completed and met some very friendly people, who I do hope I stay in contact with.

We are now counting down the days till all their junior arrival. Though I do pity some who are going to remain here till August, it is already 50 degrees in Dubai and it seems that the hot weather is here to stay.

Mrs B

Mrs B has now arrived in Dubai and has settled into the Jumeirah lifetsyle, the only worry I constantly have now, is that she finds it hard to convert Dihrams into Sterling, so my poor old bank account has taken a beating! Lets hope this is only a temporary problem!

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

In November, myself and 4 of my friends will be decending to the Yas Marina Circuit to watch the 1st ever Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Having just watched the Bahrain Grand Prix and the National Geographic program on the construction of the circuit. I now have every confidence that 30,000 workers will make this a spectacular event.

My only criticism is really lodged against F1 itself and imposing crazy prices on the spectators, why is it that Bahrain is relatively cheap compared to Abu Dhabi i.e. $150 versus $300 for a ticket. No doubt,  Bernie Ecclestone has been put in charge of pricing for the tickets,  after all Mishcon de Reya aren’t the cheapest divorce lawyers in the world.

Apart from that, lets hope that Brawn GP will be top at the end of the gruelling season! Though I am sure that the likes of McLaren and Ferrari will be hot to contest the championship as it moves to Europe.

Let to Buy UAE style!

With the property crash around corner, the Dubai Property Developer have started to try their hand at Let to Buy Schemes, in principle it is an excellent scheme to assist first time buyers onto the property ladder.

Today I paid a visit to Emaar, one of the largest developers in the UAE, to check out their scheme in the Old Town of Dubai (Built in 2007/8). The Old Town is extremely nice and unlike most developments in the region, it does not contain too many multi storey apartment blocks and is convientially located next to Dubai Mall. 

The sales representative showed me a well presented 2 bed flat, with a rental value of about 210,000 DHS per annum (GBP 38,900) which  would be payable in 2 cheques, 1 up front and one post date in 6 months time. If  I decided to buy the property and informed Emaar within 10 months of my intentions, then this money would be put towards a deposit for the property.

The trouble is that Emaar believes that a 2 bed apartment’s value is in the region of 4,700,000 DHS, which equates to (GBP 870,370) for 1,200 sq ft. I guess it is time to re-invest in London, where I think 900K would get you a lot more. 

Though with all the schemes at the moment, the issue is around financing, it seems that banks here are still offering up to 70% though the remaining 30% will be tough to find in a credit crunch.  

If you look at it as just a purely rental scheme, then this offer is not too bad, though everyone I speak to, feels that the Dubai rental market is about to take a massive knock, mainly due to the fact that expatriates are losing their careers, as the Dubai starts to feel the effects of the crunch.

Chocolate n’ Contax

With Ramadan well and truely behind us for another year. Our resident squirrel colleague has decided to change her diets to an extremely variety of snacks and extreme amounts of coffee. The fact is that her mother is completely in the dark about this shift in diet and continues to provide 3 healthly meals 7 days a week. 

For this month the various treats that surround her are (see image):

• Ding Dong Nuts
• Cadbury’s Crunchie Dairy Milk Chocolate
• Galaxy Chocolate
• Tobelrone 
• Hersheys

Chocolate and more chocolate

Whilst the season festive cheer will be amongst most of my colleagues, I will have to try super hard not to fall into temptation and graze!

Emirates ID Cards

We have been informed by the UAE government that all expatriates and locals must have an identity card by December 31st. Though as I am sure most expatriates living in Dubai and other Emirates will tell you that this is chaos and is never going to happen in time. The online registration form is so slow at loading it has cause masses of problems.

Today I went down to the Emirates ID centre in Al Barsha where the queue was beyong believe, out the door and choatic (see photo). Two people were manning the desk and there was a queue for gentlemen and a queue for ladies moving at what seemed a very slow pace, all these people were queing to collect a ticket to register either for an appointment for the card or for the typing office, who are officials who can help type and process your application beyond the first stage as the website is so slow.

Colleagues and I have calculated that if the centre in Al Barsha can see 500 people a day, that means for the month of December they would only be able to see a 11,000 people, though with Bank Holidays to take into account, this figure will be significantly lower. OIn the radio today it is estimated that only 60,000 out of the 600,000 expatriates have to registered so far, so this target will be missed.

Who knows what the solution will be, but I will be getting up at 2am to try and register myself so at least I am in the system.

Queen in Dubai

This weekend I went to see Queen play in Dubai Festival City. Upon getting to Festival City I was directed to the lonely car park outside, where 12,000 people gathered to see Queen+Paul Rogers play to a mostly expat crowd. Whilst the concert started with great gusto. The middle was rather tepid with a a mixture of promoting Free (Paul’s ex band) and a couple of new Brian May and Roger Taylor songs.  Thankfully they moved on to some Queen classic which left the crowd on a high.

My thought is, whilst the concert was entertaining, it was a little bit depressing, here was a band that used to fill stadiums of 130,000 in South America barely filling a car park now. 

Perhaps Brian Deacon made the right choice

The Eastern Province

Recently I paid my first visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, apart from being told shock and horror stories about the place, I was to my surprised plesantly surprised.

Immigration was relatively easy and Dammam airport was extremly huge, I was told by a colleague that it is the largest airport in the world by area size, we drove for about 20 minutes until we hit the airport perimeter checkpoint before being waved on to Dammam, listening to classic fm, (the only english speaking radio station I found or heard) whilst in the kingdom.

The following morning, my trips started in earnest, with Abdul, my driver, who was able to handle the pot holes of Arabia and what has to be deemed even worse driving that Dubai! Which is saying something guided through the Eastern Province from meeting to meeting.

You need a driver, as if you ding a local, it could be prison first and questions a year later, therefore advisable to drive with someone who has knowledge of the roads.

Apart from seeing sands storms that make Mad Max like a nice place to live and super oil cargo trucks taking pipelines from A-B, my key takeaway on Saudi, is that the people are generally very friendly, especially when it comes to offering their guests coffee (my eyes balls were nearly popping out of my head by the end of the experience). Though I was shocked to see that the whole place isn’t drapped in gold and that there is extreme in poverty as well amongst nationals and was shocked to see people begging on the streets for money.  guess we shouldn’t believe everything we read in the press.

Mumbai, home to 16m Mumbaikers and 16 million Nanos?

Well they say that Mumbai is the jewel of India. It is amazing to think that today people are looking to move around in a car that costs just a lac. Whilst moving is the objective and the roads in India continue to degrade to a state of beyond terrible.

Whilst the Nano, interesting it took the name that Apple made so popular with a MP3 player, doesn’t boast air conditioning, it still comes in at a rock bottom 1 lac, which must put shivers up other car companies market entry strategies to India.

Whilst Mumbai is hot and crowded I doubt most people here will see the Nano cruise at 60kms/hour. No doubt Mumbaikers will be looking for the AC option in the heat of summer, which we are promised will be coming soon from the man that owns Jaguar and Land Rover

For Ratan Tata, it is essientally similar to other great business leaders, it doesn’t matter if he sells 1 or a million, his name with be synomous with cars at all levels of the market, similar to what Volkswagen achieved after purchasing Skoda, no doubt VW will fall prey to the likes of Audi and car companies will complete and wholistic solutions under one umbrella.