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Dubai

Dubious Dubai

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 15:02

I was in Dubai two weeks ago to attend a meeting of the World Economic Forum. Our hosts, the Government of Dubai, told us that Dubai had turned the corner – hotel occupancy was up, airline traffic had recovered, and Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world was complete. And then the story broke – Dubai World was having difficulty repaying creditors. 

  Photo ©istockphoto.com

I have been to Dubai twice this year. In early 2009, I learnt that migrants were not returning en masse as reported in the media at the time. They have stayed on instead, even at the cost of losing legal status in many cases.  This time conversations with some Bangladeshi construction workers at a labor camp brought out some interesting facts: Because new construction is slowing, maintenance is doing well. Migrant workers in maintenance and hospitality are doing better than those in new construction and finance. Many migrants are moving on to Abu Dhabi and other oil-rich Emirates and neighboring countries where huge infrastructure investments are going on. Many are coping with the crisis by cutting consumption and sharing accommodation. Many have sent their families back home, so the funds spent in Dubai are now remitted home.

Many migrant workers, from Bangladesh in particular, are somewhat stuck in Dubai because they cannot afford to return. It costs about 12,000 dirhams to pay recruitment agencies and travel costs. At a monthly income below 900 dirhams – no overtime these days – a construction worker can easily take three years to save enough to repay recruitment costs. Too bad there is a crisis – they just can’t risk returning home. So many are entering into creative arrangements (e.g., taking unpaid leave) with employers to simply wait it out in Dubai.

Dune bashing in Dubai...with a hawaladar!

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 15:00

Dubai is a must for any one working on migration and remittances. One of the seven Emirates, but one that depends more on trade, finance and real estate than oil and gas, Dubai is a wonder in the desert. It has a large – perhaps the largest – migrant population relative to natives (no pun intended) in the world. If you ask me which is the most developed Indian city, I would say Dubai!

   Photo © Curt Carnemark / World Bank

For sure, Dubai has some of the best Indian food. (As an aside, London used to be the city with the best Indian food. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and was a bit disappointed with the Indian (actually Bangladeshi) restaurants. Perhaps the recent visa restriction on hiring cooks from other countries is beginning to have an impact!)

With all the photos in the media of migrants leaving Dubai (abandoning cars on the airport parking lot), I was forced to visit Dubai in April, and once more after that. The level of activity seemed to me as high as the skyscrapers, although the locals reported a slowing down in the pace of construction. I visited a few embassies and remittance service providers. Dubai is slowing, but only for a while, and not all sectors are affected the same way by the crisis. For example construction workers are more affected than hotel workers. Migrants from Kerala (India) and Bangladesh are more affected than those from Nepal and the Philippines. Pakistani drivers are also affected, not the least because rising house prices in Dubai has forced many of them to send their wives and children home. It occurred to me that this could be a reason for the surge in remittance flows to such separated families in South Asia.

Money transfer companies - many of which are also exchange houses and employers of registered hawaladars - were doing brisk business. Remittances to South Asia seemed to be booming.

A highlight of the Dubai trip was a ride to the desert. Sanket and I went dune bashing with a hawaladar/money transmitter friend!