#Dubai will now confiscate vehicles with expired registrations… #uaenews http://bit.ly/cSiAh2
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
#Dubai will now confiscate vehicles with expired registrations… #uaenews http://bit.ly/cSiAh2
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Non-performing loans are expected to swell almost 50 per cent to nearly Dh65 billion (US$17.69bn) this year as the global economic downturn and sagging property prices take a further toll on the country’s lenders.
The rise is likely to force lenders to set aside more reserves to protect themselves.
“Non-performing loans are already at a reasonable level,” Sultan Nasser al Suwaidi, the Central Bank Governor, said yesterday.
“If you take into account write-offs, non-performing loans would be higher.”…SOURCE
Non-performing loans were expected to rise to 6.5 per cent of bank lending this year from 4.4 per cent last year, he said. The total value of loans and advances in the UAE is Dh1 trillion, according to Central Bank statistics.
Banks’ loan books have been adversely affected by exposure to a severe correction in the country’s property sector, with estimated price declines of up to 50 per cent in Dubai and 40 per cent in Abu Dhabi.
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Hundreds of employees of etislalat’s 181 directory service are not under the company’s sponsorship, Gulf News has learnt.
The call centre employees, who are based in Ajman, say they have never been issued with employment visas or labour cards. They told Gulf News they are paid Dh16 per hour but have no contract. Many of them have been working there for more than five or six years.
“I was sponsored by my father,” said a 25-year-old Arab employee, who has been at the centre for five years. “I was able to obtain a visa from a company in Dubai and am working at etisalat,” he said.
Another employee, who has been working there for three years, said he was sponsored by his father. His sponsorship is going to expire in three months, he added.
A woman employee said she worked for the call centre for one and a half years but has stopped working for them now.
“I was on the sponsorship of my father,” she said…SOURCE
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is considering installing a Salik gate on Emirates Road, Arabic daily Al Bayan reported on Monday.
The report said indicators of the general budget for Dubai for 2010 expect the RTA to increase Salik revenues by introducing a new Salik gate on Emirates Road…SOURCE
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Dubai today unveiled a sweeping US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) rescue package from the Abu Dhabi Government that will allow Dubai World to deal with a slew of immediate financial obligations, including a $3.5bn Islamic bond that is due today.
Will the Palms Ever Be Completed?
The move ends months of speculation about how Nakheel, a developer owned by Dubai World, would pay off the sukuk amid declining property values and a slowdown in sales that left it virtually bereft of revenues.
It also represents by far the most direct and explicit support of Dubai to date by the Abu Dhabi Government in the wake of the financial crisis. The crisis battered property values in Dubai and slowed its ambitious growth plans as it struggled to find a solution to a crippling debt load that has been estimated at $85bn, a total greater than Dubai’s annual GDP…MORE
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
When the Ticker Stops
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5
I wasn’t expecting much when we entered the Fratelli la Bufala restaurant in the Arabian Center in Mirdif, Dubai, however I was more than pleasantly surprised by what I found when we stopped in on a whim. As a general rule here in the UAE, most mall restaurants and hotel restaurants are mediocre at best. You can basically toss out any fawning
Pizza from Fratelli la Bufala
reviews of 5 star venues that you find.
Fratelli la Bufala is located in a non-foodcourt section of the mall and takes a little bit of searching to find. The decor is rather simple and typical of UAE restaurants, but in the end that is not why you come here. What you will find are numerous Italian dishes featuring water buffalo. Water buffalo essentially tastes like beef that has some of the fat removed, which is essentially what it is being much leaner than ordinary beef.
My first trip there I had the buffalo steak which was quite tasty and enjoyed sampling the other dishes ordered by my party, including dishes that incorporated buffalo mild, cheese, and cream. On my second trip, I enjoyed on of the pizzas on offer with buffalo ham and artichoke hearts. Their pizza was done exactly right and tasted fantastic.
In short, Fratelli la Bufala’s unique take on a unique ingredient earns it a place close to the top of the UAE’s Italian restaurants.
Tip for travelers: avoid your hotel’s Italian fare and make a bee-line for Fratelli la Bufala.
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jane Coutts’s monthly ritual has been the same for the past two years: to sit on the terrace of the Lime Tree Cafe in Dubai with a close friend and watch the world go by over coffee and cake. There is one key difference now: her pal has fallen victim to the recession and left the UAE, leaving her to sit and contemplate her future in the country alone.
But while her circle of friends might have changed, the 57-year-old housewife from Australia remains pragmatic about the extent to which the UAE has been affected by the recession.
Expatriates held their collective breath as they waited for the predicted mass exodus over the summer months. With continuing uncertainty in the jobs market and many parents waiting for the end of the school year before packing up their lives in the sun, it seemed that everyone was waiting for the axe to fall.
The landscape has undeniably changed. Some did lose their jobs and return home, wondering what had happened to the Dubai dream.
Those families left behind have tightened their belts, cut back on extravagant or unnecessary spending and been more cautious about investing.
But what they haven’t all done, contrary to the predictions of the fearmongers, who forecast a huge migration, is leave.
Like many of those who have refused to give in to the uncertainty of a life thousands of miles from their homelands in the face of the economic crisis, Mrs Coutts has stuck resolutely to her guns and weathered the storm.
“There have certainly been people I know who left over the summer but an exodus is normal during those months,” she said.
“It is always quieter over summer, but the question was whether anyone would come back. Everyone was predicting schools would be half-empty but that has not been the case and traffic is back to normal.
“People have left but there are new people coming in. The recession has definitely had an impact on life here – rents have gone down and people are less extravagant.”
Mrs Coutts, whose husband is a property consultant, said the family had made some changes to their lifestyle.
“Last year we went on holiday for a month, but we agreed as a family that we could not afford to do that this year. We are more cautious about spending money because we are not sure about the future. But we are still here and quietly confident the UAE will survive.”
According to Donald Trump Jr, speaking at a notably subdued Cityscape in Dubai this week, the city had been unfairly painted by critics worldwide as a “dust bowl with no lights turned on”.
So what of the bleak images of deserted roads, empty schools and droves of unemployed expats dumping their cars at the airport, leaving trails of debts in their wake?
It simply did not happen, according to Simon Williams, the chief economist at HSBC bank in the Middle East.
“An awful lot of people with very little information were suggesting very strongly that there was going to be a mass exodus from the UAE, and Dubai in particular, when the school year ended. That did not materialise,” he said.
“The big downturn in employment came at the end of last year and the first four months of this year. The data is not there yet but we can all see what is around us.
“My very strong conviction is that the storm is largely over.”…SOURCE
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
“Misuse” of the Metro by some commuters had led to intermittent service with delays at stations and causing inconvenience to commuters during the first two days of the Metro operation, an RTA official said.
Peyman Younes Parham, an RTA spokesperson, said: “Some passengers on board pushed emergency buttons to open or close the doors or just for fun and this led to delays in the train service,” he said, adding that most of the commuters do not yet know how to use the train… SOURCE
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Long before the first train of the day, it was clear that the Dubai Metro’s debut weekend would provide the biggest challenge of its short history.
Crowds of would-be passengers descended on stations beginning early in the morning, unaware that no train would run until 2pm. The crush threatened to overwhelm both staff and the system, with officials estimating that 30,000 passengers passed through the turnstiles in the first two hours of operation yesterday.
Last night, several stations were briefly closed and service was suspended after reports that some passengers had been hitting the emergency stop buttons on the crowded trains.
At the Mall of the Emirates station, where some of the biggest crowds congregated, Metro employees used a megaphone to urge passengers to stay calm and not push. Workers were later joined by transport police after the queuing system threatened to break down as dozens of men tried to push their way through to platforms.
Nakheel Station was also closed for a while in the evening, with staff saying that a train had broken down, halting service for at least an hour. Trains were stationary at Al Rashidiya as well, at the end of the Red Line, for more than an hour, forcing some passengers to abandon their journeys.
Mohammed Sageer said he boarded a train with his family at 6pm and was still waiting to leave an hour later. There was no air conditioning and lights were flickering on and off at the station.
“There was no information, people were getting very confused and women and children were getting upset,” he said, adding that Metro staff were unable to offer refunds.
Services were due to be extended past the official closing time of midnight to 2am so passengers could return home…SOURCE
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
This Friday morning 9/11 morning traffic was backed-up horribly as the Rashidiya metro station seemed to be shut completely.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Dubai makes history with the opening of the Metro system at 9pm on Wednesday. The world’s largest automated driverless Metro system has been built by 30,000 workers at an unprecedented pace and will serve around 1.2 million passengers every day.
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
A few months ago, any one of them probably would have turned heads. Today, few people give them a second glance except, perhaps, to read the latest graffiti scrawled in the thick dust that has obliterated their lustre.
They are the abandoned cars of Dubai, among them Porsches, Mercedes and BMWs. Each was once someone’s dream, but now they are unloved, unwanted and making a poor job of fending for themselves on the streets of the city.
Take the BMW Z3 wasting away on a side street in Dubai Marina. There is little sadder than the sight of a once proud sports car slumped in the gutter, its top down, tyres all but flat and its gleaming black paint job lost beneath an ever-thickening layer of dust… MORE
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
USA2UAE on Twitter
