Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

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The food imports have considerably risen in the last few years in view of the increase in population as well as water scarcity and hostile land conditions. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are already developing arable lands and food processing units in several Asian and African countries in a bid to overcome the snowballing global food shortages.

Harish Rupani, managing director of Equinox Trading, a food products trading company, told the Gulf News that growing food locally was not a viable option for the UAE as it costed three or four times more to grow local crops than it did to import. Dubai, the UAE’s commercial hub is one of the largest re-exporting centres in the world, and it traded in 2008 about $1.2bn worth of food-related items.

In the recent estimates by the Business Monitor International (BMI) indicate that food expenditure in the UAE reached $6.7bn in 2009. And it has been forecasted that it would grow by close to 3 percent in the current year.

The heavy dependence by the GCC on food imports also makes it the most vulnerable to not only price variations but also to increasingly changing food policies of the exporting countries such as blanket ban on exports of certain food commodities which are scarce in those markets.

The Standard Chartered’s most recent food report claims food prices are at a historic high and rising, around 80 percent higher than the low mid-2002 levels. Rupani said that prices of sugar and rice had tripled over the past five years.

The BMI is understood to have learned that the UAE government is making numerous efforts to increase the number of food processing plants in the country. The government has invested about $1.4bn into the food sector since 1994, and there are 150 food processing plants operational in the UAE today.

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Dubai’s strength comes from the over supply of realty units which in turn reduced prices considerably to make them attractive for investors overseas. Many projects regardless of size those which are either put on hold or shelved will likely factor in on supply and demand quotient to give an edge to the failing real estate firms with higher price and profitability in the near future. “As development projects are temporarily or permanently halted, the oversupply will begin to diminish,” the report said.

However, the challenge for local developers is to confront the coming consolidation wave, review diversification strategies and manage existing assets wisely. The commercial segment may be the most affected as the available office space will jump from 4mn to 6mn square metres by the end of 2011.

AT Kearney report titled “2010 Real Estate Global Opportunity Index” says Dubai’s experience is a cautionary tale for other GCC countries to manage supply in accordance with demand. It also noted that the UAE real estate was cheaper in comparison to its global peers.

In contrast, Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital emirate has witnessed increase in tourism and airport traffic, bank lending criteria for residential sales had been relaxed and construction costs were down 30 percent since the end of 2008. Besides, the emirate boasts of $200bn real estate and many high-visibility projects, such as the successful Formula 1 racing event on Yas Island.

A host of luxuries offered by the GCC member states such as, an environment for high style living standards at a lower cost now is likely to attract foreign investors to bet on the future of the region. Nevertheless it is observed that the oil reserves amounting to more than $5 trillion would continue to be central to these economies for many years to come.

Likewise, Saudi Arabia is the largest real estate market in the region with numerous mega projects. Unlike the UAE, Qatar or Bahrain which depends on foreign investors, the Saudi kingdom has its own domestic demands to be fulfilled in its realty domain. It has been forecasted in another study that Saudi Arabia will face a shortage of up to 1mn housing units over the next three years, as residential prices increase nearly seven percent annually.

The GCC real estate is likely to perk up as there are indications of a global recovery ushered in by emerging economies including China and India where reality has started looking up. Millions of new housing units at affordable prices, falling interest rates and job market stability are expected serve as a springboard to a quick rebound for the region.

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