Recession in Dubai leading to migrants abandoning cars @ airport & fleeing country!!!

[supremeBaleno]

Disclaimer : This news and link came as an email forward. So not sure about authenticity. Also no idea about the authenticity of the Boing Boing url. Anyway, that out of the way, here goes :

Quoting from the article :

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Dubai airport clogged with cars abandoned by fleeing construction workers

Posted by Cory Doctorow, February 9, 2009 12:55 PM

The roads around Dubai airport are clogged with abandoned cars left behind by guestworkers from the construction industry who are fleeing the country ahead of the economic collapse:

On the night of December 31, 2008 alone more than 80 vehicles were found at the airport. "Sixty cars were seized on the first day of this year," director general of Airport Security, Mohammed Bin Thani, told DNA over the phone. On the same day, deputy director of traffic, colonel Saif Mohair Al Mazroui, said they seized 22 cars abandoned at a prohibited area in the airport.

Faced with a cash crunch and a bleak future ahead, there were no goodbyes for the migrants -- overwhelmingly South Asians, mostly Indians - just a quiet abandoning of the family car at the airport and other places.

While 2,500 vehicles have been found dumped in the past four months outside Terminal III, which caters to all global airlines, Terminal II, which is only used by Emirates Airlines, had 160 cars during the same period...

"The construction and real estate industry has been hit following the global slowdown and the direct fallout is that professionals working in the realty industry are rapidly losing their jobs," said a senior media professional, in-charge of a realty supplement in Dubai. "In fact, my weekly real estate supplement usually had 60% advertisement and ran into 300-odd pages. In the last seven weeks, it's down to 80 pages and with fewer advertisments," he added.

Mumbai resident D Nair (name changed) had been living in a plush highrise in Sharjah for the past four years. However, the script went horribly wrong when his contract was terminated. Nair used all his credit cards to their maximum limit, shopping for people back home. He then discarded his Honda Accord before returning to India for good. Nair, who stays in a rented apartment in Navi Mumbai today, has a Rs15 lakh loan with a Dubai bank.
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Maybe our Dubai tbhp-ians could shed light on this.

[kb100]

Yup.. This is true! I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg. There was an article yesterday which stated that EACH of the three airports in Kerala are witnessing close to 300 returning families - every day!

Sad...

[JVH]

Am not sure if this true but I do know this is the condition of the folks who are in US.

Friends of mine have already requested me to hunt for openings in India as they have all been issued pink slips and are returning.

As kb100 said, it is just the tip of the iceberg.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

A relative in DBX estimates that 50K (fifty thousand) Indian FAMILIES will return home by March.

[oss]

I too have heard this from different sources and not sure about the authenticity of this particular one. However i have been hearing & seeing quite a few of my friends returning from the Gulf countries, especially UAE as the prospects are not too good, and the salary doesn't really stack up to give any great saving. The rentals have shot up quite exhobitantly in the last two years, and so has been the cost of living. Now with the construction projects getting scraped not surpised to see such things happening.

[sam003]

It happen every time, even in 99-2000 when dot com busted. Many of guys flew from USA abandoning their cars on airport parking. I am sure this might be happening right now too.

[yatinchoubal]

SOURCE :- REDIFF.com

The end of the Gulf dream


February 9, 2009



Text: Arun Lakshman


Gone are the days when a job in the Gulf was a dream come true for many unemployed people from Kerala.

The economic recession has seen a huge exodus from the Gulf countries, shattering many dreams.

For the unemployed youth of Kerala, the Gulf meant a steady source of income and better job opportunities.

But today, the scenario has changed. According to official reports around 1,50,000 people are being deported from the Arabian Gulf as most of the construction activities in the Gulf countries have come to a grinding halt.


Sources in emigration department told rediff.com that around three hundred families are coming back home through each of the three international airports in the state and that there would be a steady increase in the influx of these gulf expatriates in the coming days.


As the first step, people are sending back their families as the cost of living has escalated in the United Arab Emirates and the salaries and other increments are being reduced drastically.

Sources said several projects which were announced in Dubai including the Dubai Magic city stands cancelled due to the recession.

Meanwhile, in a related development the state Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan had urged the Members of Parliament from Kerala to raise the issue of Gulf exodus in both the houses of parliament
The state finance minister Dr. T. M.Thomas Issac has also said that a special package would be necessary to rehabilitate the expatriates who are coming back to the state.

The state which was badly hit during the Kuwait war is once again feeling the pinch of the great Gulf exodus and sources indicated that if the state and the central governments don't do something in real earnest then the state's economy would be badly affected.

[srijit]

@SB, boingboing and Cory Doctorow are reputed names. Also heard this news from others in Kerala.

This link says that only 11 cars were abandoned

[sanjayatarizona]

Latest figures estimate(BBC) that 263b $ worth of real estate projects have been shelved . Heck that's enough to push quite a few nations down the drain. It's dire straits for the Kerala economy(which never had one of it's own anyways).

On the +ve side ST from Liquor for the Kerala gov can be expected to hit an alltime high.

[Blue_V]

Originally Posted by sanjayatarizona

Latest figures estimate(BBC) that 263b $ worth of real estate projects have been shelved . Heck that's enough to push quite a few nations down the drain. It's dire straits for the Kerala economy(which never had one of it's own anyways).

On the +ve side ST from Liquor for the Kerala gov can be expected to hit an alltime high.

Anyway why has the construction industry been hit in Dubai?

[m-hawk]

Originally Posted by sam003

It happen every time, even in 99-2000 when dot com busted. Many of guys flew from USA abandoning their cars on airport parking. I am sure this might be happening right now too.

Can you put light to what step s were taken to remove those cars which were left back at the airport !!
Atleast someone confirmed this new s by posting it as a thread !! Can some members from dubai put more light to it ??

[kutlee]

heard this couple of weeks ago. i heard the number was around 300. i was sure that this number was much more. Consutruction is hit because all revenue comes from oil and govt budget etc depends on the forecast of the oil price which is quite low and doesn't bounce back to the 100$ range soon. greed!!!

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Khaleej Times Online - ‘Only 11 Cars Found Abandoned At Airport’

Originally Posted by Blue_V

Anyway why has the construction industry been hit in Dubai?

They priced themselves out of existence!!!

Honestly, real estate rentals in DBX were as high as 75% of the upper than upper middle class income group.

People may argue that the new construction was for sale, and not rent. Fact is, what DBX calles "freehold" was in fact, 99 year leases. And there is no reason people from elsewhere should come to a desert land and purchase land at astronomical prices unless they can also afford staff / employees in DBX, who in turn have affordable housing.

Edit:- That said, I stick to my earlier story - at least 50K families are expected to return to India. I only hope that this turns out to be a rumour.

Edit 2:- That site is actually a blog post by Cory Doctorow. I am afraid it mostly based on hearsay. After all, "Construction workers" in DBX do not own cars - they livei n dingy rooms, 7-10 in a single room, and are transported to work in 75 seater Indian made buses. (Non-Indian buses are used as tourist buses there - this info is gathered from some thread on this forum itself).

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by kb100

Yup.. This is true! I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg. There was an article yesterday which stated that EACH of the three airports in Kerala are witnessing close to 300 returning families - every day! .

That number is closer to 3,000 per day but thats not people fleeing Dubai - that is the number of families visiting Kerala on any given day. I came by an Emirates flight which had over 400 passengers (777) and there are 2 of those every day to Cochin + 2 Air India + 1 Jazeera + 1 Air Arabia (all A320, so smaller capacities)+ several other flights.

300 families landing up at Kerala airports is therefore rather low.

BTW, construciton workers dont drive around in Honda Accords either.

We also hear that software professionals in India are jobless and are dumping flats and cars in Hyderabad and Bangalore after the Satyam scam due to which millions of young people are jobless and India's position as a software exporter has taken a big beating in the world market. I suggest the same level of credibility is attached to these stories.

[deepclutch]

gulf is never a home to settle for any immigrants obviously.I always expected such a backlash can hit any time soon due to the recession.kerala cannot handle if such a flooding from gulf happens :( .
with low demand for petroleum for the next 10-12 years ,gulf countries will be going to be more stricterer with respect to immigrant population.afterall ,gulf is no man's land before petroleum boom.