Sir, Although financiers and investors around the world have been shaken by the announcement of the government of Emirate of Dubai seeking postponement of debt repayment at its holding conglomerate Dubai World, this development is neither accidental nor has it come without warning bells. In fact, this crisis was looming large and the gravity of the situation went unnoticed even during Sept 2008 global financial turmoil. The current crisis is caused by reckless spending on massive high-tech and new generation real estate projects. In 2005-06, around 25 per cent of the towers operating globally on construction sites were in Dubai.

It reflected the greed of the foreign architects, engineering consultants and the new class of aggressive, US educated MBAs who boosted the Dubai realty market to unprecedented heights without knowing the fundamentals. Dubai is not London or Singapore or New York. It lured gullible investors with total disregard of the credit ability of borrowers and now everyone is paying a price for it.

The biggest casualty of this turmoil will be millions of low paid Indian immigrants who will lose their jobs.

Although investors around the world have been shaken by the announcement of the government of Emirate of Dubai seeking debt repayment, the development does not come as a surprise as there were enough warning signs for quite Some time. In fact this was a crisis waiting to happen but surprisingly went unnoticed during the September 2008 global financial turmoil when even the Us financial giant, Lehman Brothers, collapsed. This present crisis has been caused by reckless spending on massive high-tech real estate projects.

The biggest casualty of this turmoil will be the millions of poorly paid Indian immigrants from Kerala and Rajasthan, who will lose their jobs.

Although investors around the world have been shaken by the announcement of the government of Emirate of Dubai seeking debt repayment, the development does not come as a surprise as there were enough warning signs for quite Some time. In fact this was a crisis waiting to happen but surprisingly went unnoticed during the September 2008 global financial turmoil.

The biggest casualty of this turmoil will be the millions of lowly paid Indian immigrants who will lose their jobs in Dubai.