The bad news is getting somewhat tedious...

They say no news is good news, and that might be a good thing in the current climate, as the bad news is getting somewhat tedious. Yep, it’s all gone quiet. I don’t know whether it’s because of the holiday season and all the doomsayers have left their pens somewhere else, or whether it’s the fact that you can only say so much about the ‘current economic climate’; or a combination of the two.

That said, I’d like to talk about the ‘current economic climate’. Why? Because it can be construed as a force for good.

Obviously job losses are never good, but are about as certain as death and taxes… Well, the latter if you live outside the UAE.
 
And that is part of the point. There has been an atmosphere of splendid isolation as Dubai, in particular, has spectacularly risen from the desert at breakneck speed, money and resources seemingly no object for over a decade.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown, who had been running the UK economy as badly as a debt ridden student, came face-to-face with his predilection for debt financed consumption as bank after bank began to fall when the money ran out. Across the pond Americans woke up to the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the fact that lending money to people who can’t pay you back is not a good model to base the largest economy in the world on.

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As the UK and US went into meltdown and bailout mode, Japan and the emerging economies of the sub-continent began to crumble as demand for raw materials and manufacturing dried up thanks to the credit crunch. And it goes on.

The Middle East is not without its problems, but I’d say they were economically pretty far removed from the hubris induced crisis above. Yes there has been a cooling off in the property and development sectors, but this a period in which the industry can take stock and legislatively realign after years of frenetic activity.

This is an opportunity to build on fantastic engineering and architectural achievements such as the Burj Dubai and Palm Jumeirah. Appreciate what we have here in the Middle East, it’s the only region in the world to offer such scope, and 2009 is going to be an exciting year.

And to make sure you get the most out of the coming year, FMME will be keeping you informed of knowledge sharing events, namely FM Expo in May and our own FMME Conference in March. You can read more on both events on pages 9 and 11 respectively. Enjoy the issue.

Paul Collett, editor
paul.collett@itp.com