Word: foreign
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some of Qatar's development playbook - eye-catching modern architecture, a well-run state-owned airline - has clearly been copied from Dubai. Qatar also benefits from a pool of skilled foreign workers, many of whom moved there after first working in its glitzier rival. (See 10 Things to Do in Dubai...
...more but less politically free than other places in the region. Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai, is able to take daring risks not just because he is a hereditary ruler, but because he is unaccountable to the vast majority of Dubai residents, 95% of whom are foreign and who live in Dubai subject to his favor. Other places in the gulf have larger native populations, or more active national assemblies than Dubai. While rulers in those places are no doubt authoritarian, they still have to tread more carefully with public opinion, or at least the opinion...
...with gigantic aquariums, investors have begun to demand transparency. Last month, Barclays won the city's first foreclosure case. That could open the door to a flood of legal cases and more financial turbulence, but will also reassure investors that Dubai is learning from its mistakes. To keep attracting foreign residents with the skills to run a modern economy - and to better educate its own citizens so they can play a bigger role in that economy - the gulf's cities will also have to open up more. Dubai could well lead the way. "Dubai has been proving naysayers wrong...
Progress will be slow. A recent government reshuffle has moved power away from technocratic experts and outside consultants, and back into the hands of the royal family, especially the crown prince, Sheik Hamdan. But without oil money of its own, Dubai has little choice but to listen to its foreign creditors and stakeholders. And wealthy as they are, the leaders of the gulf countries also know their societies have to eventually change too, says economist Sfakianakis. Oil generates wealth, but the oil industry doesn't generate many jobs. Even in rich Saudi Arabia, unemployment is officially 11.6% - and that...
...Greek Drachmas would get you $3.33. By May 2000, that was down to 27¢. That's the way the currency crumbles in a smallish, less than rich nation beset by government budget deficits, inflation and a spotty record of economic policymaking. Convincing foreign investors to buy your debt is a struggle. Financial life is difficult in ways scarcely imagined by inhabitants of the lucky (and not large) club of nations with solid currencies...