Thursday 11 October 2012

Dubai Losing Billions as Insecure Expats Send Earnings Abroad - Businessweek

Even after 40 years of living in Dubai, Wissam Haroun says his status there isn’t secure enough to invest his savings locally. The emirate’s rulers have an $11 billion reason to make him feel more at home.

“My long term investments here tend to be limited,” because of rules including caps on residency visas, said Haroun, a Syrian who founded Haroun Multimedia FZ LLC, a Dubai-based entertainment and technology company. A pension plan would address the needs of those looking for increased stability, he said. “I would seriously consider investing.”

Most of Dubai’s 2 million people are foreign nationals, and they send 40 percent of their salaries home, according to the World Bank. A pension plan that embraced them -- like the one offered in Singapore, another expatriate haven -- would help lower borrowing costs for an emirate that ran up $113 billion in debt then almost defaulted in 2009 after a property crash.

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