Posted in: Experienced, Switching Sectors 9 October 2008 14 answers
Anonymous

Question: In terms of jobs, will Dubai grow to be seen as a rival to New York and London as a global financial centre?

Answers (14)

  1. Probably not as big as New York going forward. Bigger than London – most definitely. London will contract because the American banks which dominate London will shift their operations to Asia and Dubai. Americans go wherever the money is. Regional european countries will have their own local teams.

  2. this will never happen, ever. simple to have a financial centre, you need to have a legal system. and dubai doesn’t have any.

    What dubai really is, is a safe haven for criminals and money launderers. Just wait till the CIA cracks down on the place

  3. Not until…

    1: The temperature drops from an average of 45degrees,
    2: A few hundred years pass, and theres actually an ounce of london/NY style culture, instead of shopping malls and hotels built on sandcastles
    3: The business culture matures from being one in which Western-Cauasian males are revered as gods, and everyone else is looked down upon
    4: Theres actually a financial infrastruture and some deals to work on, rather than empty flash offices with nice new espresso machines.
    5: Lastly, when people realise you cant build an international business hub and financial hotspot with gimmicky marketing in magazines and a few petro-dollars.

  4. Although I wish them the best of luck I don’t think it will be anytime soon.
    London and NY were built over time to serve actual businesses doing stuff. Dubai (and to be fair most of the Middle East) don’t really do much other than suck oil out of the ground.

  5. sorry guys.. this comments show that (honestly) you just have no idea.

    i moved to Dubai a year ago and it was one of the best decisions ever made.. apart from the market development which was not there when i signed..

    Yes the place has challenges, is somehwat backwards, yes the white males call the shoots, yes the whole nightlife hotel situation is annoying, yes it is warm in the summer, but now and going forward it is great…. however.. the buzz and the thrill is amazing.. there is plenty of buiness, just in different places..

    If you have a genuie interest in frontier markets and want a new experience you will love it.. clearly it is not forever.. but for the time you are here, with the right open attitude you will not regret one minute..

    and yes, people and money is way ahead of london… do not think anybody talks much about the US anymore given where we are…

  6. when oil prices come off, dubai is just another iceland

    so much for all this talk that the oil wealth has been smartly invested… yes if you think building ski slopes in the desert is smart

    anyway, what a soulless dump dubai is

  7. People wake up over 3 trillion has been wiped off the wealth of the anglosaxon model of capitalism. To retrieve any of this back NY / London will need hard solid cash. Meaning, either the big players in the middle-east and asia invest in London or NY – or they get the best talent to set-up shop in there hometown. Capitalism has no loyalty people!

  8. “If you build, they will come” works for short sighted real estate projects and trading ventures. To have a financial hub, you need a big market (Dubai services the Middle East, a small and rather unsophisticated market), a reliable and transparent legal system (not a one man show), entrpreneurship (as opposed to a copy/paste culture) and a highly educated and sophisticated workforce who want to work and live somewhere (not an imported workforce chasing a tax-free haven).

    Dubai is moving in the right direction as a gateway to the Middle East, but by no means is it a world financial hub.

  9. Donny. the rest of the middle east is wealthy (i.e Abu dhabi, Kuwait, Saudi and Qatar) Dubai and Bahrain are poor hence the need to raise money through dodgy real estate

  10. Alan is right, you need courts where corruption is very rare, laws that are not based upon superstition, and a vast infrastructure of skills. Not just traders and quants, but settlements, market data, audit, risk management and of course regulators….

    I do love KWM’s pathetic racism. Why doesn’t he just say what he means ? It’s not an anglo-saxon invention. He’s wrong anyway. What we now call finance was invented by a mix of Italian Jews and Arab merchants, but is now practiced by pretty much everyone.

    However Calculus defintely *was* invented by an “anglo saxon”, and people screw up with it. Bridges fall down, wings fall off planes, and Newton’s maths are used in pricing derivatives. Do we give up “anglo saxon maths” ?
    Computers are anglo-saxon, you can argue whether the first computer was British or American, but it defintely people was who look and talk like me. Do we say “anglo saxon” programming ?

    Would Sharia programming be better ? Would a woman be allowed to use the same spreadsheets as a man ?

    He’s nearly right that Capitalism has no loyalty. Nor does mathematics, agriculture, manufacturing, organizational theory, or recpies for making soup.

  11. DominiConnor-

    “As a headhunter….” I think your opinion is biased. You have an agenda and it’s not to contribute valid points to this discussion.

  13. couldn’t pay me 2x my current salary to move there.
    no thanks!

  14. Yes Rupert I have an agenda, and it’s always visible because I always declarte who I am and what I do. Unlike you…..

    I don’t however have an agenda for or against Dubai. I think it could be a good career option, risky of course, but in this market what job is risk free ?
    I just don’t believe it is ever likely to be a rival to London or NY, but (say) 10th biggest centre is both possible and very attractive.

    Some people of course will have “cultural” problems with living in Dubai, and yes I’m one of them. But that’s true of everywhere, it just varies in what people want. As a headhunter it’s my job to find out what people actually want and try to get it for them, not to tell them what to want.

    London and NY have prospered at financial centres partly because it is easier to be “foreign” there, regardless of what sort of “foreign” you are. No government can do much about this since it is cultural. I’m not claiming New Yokers or Londoners are no racist, but that most people simply don’t really care enough to do anything about it.
    The government can fix the legal system. Again NY/Lon are less than perfect but their is greater equality before the law than in Europe, or Dubai.