In spite of everything, the Arab world is adapting to the current crisis. There is developing, out of the gloom, a positive attitude. There have been no more dramatic crashes and we are factoring this reality into our ‘books.’ In short we are less traumatized. It is as the French say, la vie c’est l’habitude. Still, looking at the numbers, the crisis is very much a reality and will not be going away any time soon. So despite this new-found stoicism, measures to spur growth are still needed.
This is where the UAE’s policy of insisting that foreign talent leave the country within one month of leaving a job — enforced or voluntary — is, at least in the current zeitgeist, somewhat short-sighted. A nation in the grip of an economic crisis needs consumers. This is real economics and a scheme should be developed whereby these people — many of them Lebanese, it must be said — be allowed to stay and, more crucially, to spend their money (not, mind you, money that has come from welfare, but for example money from unemployment insurance policies that the unemployed themselves have paid for). Let them stay and spend on their cars and spend on their apartments as they forage for new work. Then, there would be no urban myths of sand-swept airport parking lots filled with abandoned cars with credit cards tossed casually onto the passenger seat.
Without these people, there will not be ‘real’ economic activity. And the policy of ejection will have an even greater impact on those economies that have already been buffeted by what are arguably the worst economic winds in 60 years. We must be thankful that Dubai’s neighboring emirates — especially Abu Dhabi — have not been hit as hard and have, by maintaining a degree of price relativity, not seen prices, real estate in particular, plummet.
Keeping these valuable human assets on the ground will bring out the best in their entrepreneurial survival instincts. They will regroup; they will network; they will seek out new opportunities and all the while they will be spending and this can only lead to eventual growth. It has happened in Lebanon since the 1970s, when civil war forced the Lebanese to be at their most creative, and it is still going on — despite the best efforts of our politicians to squash any economic dynamism — as many struggle to recalibrate their business lives to the new reality.
Let human talent roam free and it will thrive.
