Mar 12, 2009
High-flying Dubai coming back to Earth
Young professionals, lured to the Gulf by high salaries and Dubai's mystique, are now out of work.
By ROBERT W. GEE
Cox News Service
Many of the construction projects in Dubai, United Arab Emirates have either been suspended or canceled as the global financial crisis has caught up with the city known for extravagant excess.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A few months ago, America Harris was marketing real estate with the promise that Dubai would continue to prosper.
The North Lauderdale, Fla., native would show prospective clients articles from the local English-language newspaper that claimed Dubai was still a good investment even as most of the world's real-estate markets were faltering.
"Dubai was going to be unfazed by the financial crisis. It was resilient," Harris said one recent afternoon.
But last month, she and dozens of her colleagues lost their jobs. This city of skyscrapers and man-made island resorts had become the latest victim of the global financial crisis.
Young professionals from Europe and America, lured to the Gulf by high salaries and Dubai's mystique as a new land of opportunity, are now out of work and scrambling to sell their property, including condos and cars, before their residency visas expire — typically one month after losing a job.
"Dubai in the fall was such a vibrant city," Harris said. "Now, it's almost like a shell of its former self. All the shops are empty. The restaurants are empty."
Her husband still has a job as a private equity investor, so they plan to stay for now. But they've cut back on one staple among the Western expatriate crowd: Friday morning Champagne brunches at five-star hotels that typically run more than $100 per person.
At least 57 large-scale construction projects in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, most of them in Dubai, have been suspended or canceled. They include the $600 million Palm Trump Hotel and Tower and the $38 billion Nakheel Harbor and Tower, a government-sponsored development that was to include a skyscraper 3,281 feet high, far surpassing the world's current tallest building.
The United Arab Emirates Central Bank announced last month it would purchase half of a $20 billion Dubai government bond issue to keep the city afloat as credit dries up and loan payments come due.
The local stock market rebounded on the news, but analysts expect Dubai's economy to continue to sputter.
"We haven't seen the large-scale distressed selling yet," said Eckart Woertz, an economist at Gulf Research Center, who has lived in Dubai for five years and has witnessed its unprecedented growth.
One-quarter of the world's construction cranes were said to be in Dubai. Many of them are now idle.
Real estate, finance and construction have been hardest hit, but job losses are taking place across the spectrum.
Monique Adams arrived in November to help set up an electronic medical-records system for University Hospital, a government project affiliated with Harvard Medical School. It is now on hold, and she and most of her colleagues, largely Americans, were laid off in mid-February. Adams is trying to sell her 2005 Nissan at a loss before joining her husband in California, where he found work.
"It's very disappointing," said Adams, 36, of Salt Lake City. "But, you know, Dubai's not immune."
There is no bankruptcy law in Dubai, and debtors can go to prison — an incentive to leave quickly. The talk of the town is that hundreds of cars reportedly have been abandoned at the airport. The police have denied the story.
A silver lining to the downturn, some say, is less traffic at a time when balmy winter weather typically draws sun seekers from Europe. And while the plunge of as much as 50 percent in real-estate prices has burned speculators, it presents opportunity for others.
Nick Hadous, from Dearborn, Mich., who arrived in December to take a job as a corporate lawyer, says he can now afford to live at Jumeirah Beach Residence, a tony development near the marina, which was out of reach when he arrived.
"I think it may turn out to be better in the long run," Hadous said. "The market here was way out of whack. They needed a correction."