Dubai: Is that the exit door?

You would forgive UK firms for clambering over each other to escape from Dubai at the moment, yet Hopkins and WSP have vowed to keep their offices open. So do they know something other companies don’t?

Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye. Hopkins Architects pledged to keep its Dubai office open last week, despite an increasingly nasty legal imbroglio with a major developer there, Dubai Properties. WSP, which made a loss of £2.4m on a turnover of £49m for its Middle East and North Africa business in 2009 and has minimal work in Dubai, is also retaining its office of more than 30 people in the emirate. In light of the rough time they are having, you can’t help wondering what is detaining them.

The decision to stay seems even stranger when you look at some of the ominous signs coming from the wider region. Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the two markets that were touted as the great hopes for UK firms after the Dubai crash, have been slowing down. The building industry in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region - comprising Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE - shrunk by 2.2% during the final quarter of 2009. So are Hopkins and WSP doing the right thing, or is now the time to leave?