Under pressure even before the outbreak, Dubai and its vast web of state-linked industries face billions of dollars in looming debt repayments. “Dubai is destined to be a crossroad between East and West, and between North and South,” the charter says. “It would be absolute economic catastrophe, worse than the current situation.”Then there were the problems Dubai faced before the crisis. The pandemic has simply thrown into relief how much Dubai, like the rest of the UAE, relies on global trade. But Dubai has faced global economic crises before, perhaps the most serious coming in the grips of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Source: Manila Times May 13, 2020 06:11 UTC