South Asia Investor Review

My family and I stopped in Dubai for a three-day vacation in July on our way to Pakistan from the United States. As I was planning the Dubai stopover, a friend of mine who maintains an apartment in Dubai for his frequent business trips there heard about it, and offered to me the use of his apartment and his driver for the duration of our stay. This friendly gesture proved to be extremely convenient and valuable for us. Not only did the driver meet us at the airport upon arrival, he stayed with us and showed us around the usual places such as Palm Jumeirah, Burj ul Arab, Atlantis hotel and resort, various shopping malls, etc. He also arranged for a desert safari for us. In addition to the tourism, my family and I got a chance to meet an old friend of mine and his family, who have been settled in Dubai for the last thirty years. He heads the sales office of a major European company there. Our Dubai arrival was very smooth. The plane landed at 4AM, about a half hour earlier than scheduled...

As the global economic crisis continues to take its toll in US, Europe, Middle East and East Asia, South Asian workers overseas are being let go in large numbers Faced with rising unemployment in Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur government on Tuesday said it will reduce the number of foreign workers in the country to 1.8 million by 2010 from the present over two million. This decision has serious implications for tens of thousands of South Asians, mostly from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, who currently work in the island nation. Malaysian minister Syed Hamid Albar said the authorities had managed to reduce the number of foreign workers by 60,000 since last March, according to media reports. Last week, the minister ordered the cancellation of 55,000 visas granted to Bangladeshis in 2007, eliciting protests from Bangladesh. Though reliable unemployment figures are hard to find in the United Arab Emirates , there is evidence to suggest that joblessness is rapidly growing in the Gulf region. Duba...