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Tuesday, October 07th, 2008
You are here: Shelter Offshore Home Page
Tuesday, October 07th, 2008
Up until now, expatriates living and working in Bahrain were able to take good advantage of the island nation’s free medical system, but new plans are being worked up that will likely remove this automatic right to free health care and instead make expats pay for all the treatment that they receive.
There are already many benefits to living and working in Bahrain – such as attractive salaries, low taxation and social payments, a great climate and a relatively free lifestyle – but the free access to health care was seen as a great value added bonus by many. However, according to the Bahrain Insurance Association, this free care costs the government as much as 20 million Bahraini Dinar each year.
The plans to make expats pay for medical care could come into effect this month and so this is a health insurance update for expats living in Bahrain…
If you have turned on the TV of late or tuned in to the radio, picked up a newspaper or even overheard conversations in bars or on trains there is absolutely no way you can have missed the fact that the UK is in a terrible situation financially speaking.
The situation is expected to get worse with the most negative, (or perhaps realistic) analysts suggesting that the end will not be in sight for at least five years. So how on earth can anyone find anything positive to focus on when all around us financial markets are falling, banks are going bankrupt and the average man and woman on the street are the ones being most affected.
Well, here’s a little secret that not so many people know about – the situation across the Channel in la belle France is actually a lot more positive. If you’re wondering how to squirrel your savings away into something safer than a semi-secure bank account or a rapidly dwindling stock or share, here are ten reasons to move into French investment property.
Yesterday’s slide in the volatile global equities market saw gold making further gains as more investors sought safe haven refuge.
Analysts predict that gold will continue to see gains in the near term while the key agenda for investors remains reduction of risk. Gold prices rose yesterday trading at $862.75 an ounce, up $5.30 an ounce at New York’s notional close on Monday - gaining almost 4% against losses on the equity markets.
Gold traditionally performs well when global equity markets slide, gold has also benefited from the decline in other commodities.
I hope we will be forgiven for having momentarily turned our back on the property market in Dubai – it’s not that we’ve stopped caring for a single second about what happens in this glitzy and surreal world of ever bigger and better real estate projects, it’s just that the global financial crisis caught our eye!
We realise we’ve been remiss and so our eye is back on the ball, and in this article we want to discuss whether Dubai’s property bubble will burst because the market sentiment is certainly divided and there are those championing the ongoing positive advancement of the property scene, while at the same time others are pointing out the pitfalls.
So, on the one hand you have the fact that Dubai’s government will pour as much money as is needed into any element of the economy to see it safe, but on the other hand you have to be realistic about these things and ask, where will the people come from to live in these mega housing estates and to shop in these huge malls?
Unlike Europe, the US holds an organisational advantage in its ability to put together a structured and coordinated rescue plan; however, a coordinated bailout plan or European ad-hoc bailout, neither will do anything to stop the worsening global economies.
Monday trading has started with yet another dramatic slide in global equities with investors growing ever more nervous; sentiment is unlikely to recover anytime soon despite the bail out plan.
The global problem has gone far beyond a banking crisis with “real economy” data showing sinking world economies. US job losses have hit a 5-year high and the major European economies are either already in recession or soon to go into recession. A survey of manufacturers showed falling orders throughout the developed world and everywhere you look the story is one of negativity in terms of balance books and sentiment.
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