Page 208 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

190 Dubai & Co.

South Asian expatriates. Although few South Asian expatriates
speak Arabic fluently, many are Muslims and therefore feel a
greater identification with Gulf culture than workers without
this background do. South Asian expatriates also tend to form
communities of common origin, in which they speak their native
languages, wear their traditional clothing, and eat their traditional
foods. They therefore are able to enjoy many of the comforts of
home while working abroad and earning far more than they could
in their native market.
Expatriates from the West and OECD (Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development) world, though not
nearly as numerous, have played a crucial role in providing execu-
tive leadership and technical expertise over the past decades.
British expatriates and political officers have long wielded influ-
ence in the region, in the days of the Trucial States and as early as
the nineteenth century through treaties with local rulers. Since the
1970s, GCC institutions have employed OECD staff in senior roles,
often in areas requiring sophisticated technical analysis (e.g., engi-
neering and finance) or in areas that involve international relations
and cross-border activity (e.g., law and public affairs). The preva-
lence of expatriate workers from the West and from Asia, along
with the legacy of British influence over the region, has led to a
business culture in Gulf private-sector firms in which English is the
language of the workplace, and most workers are not required to
know Arabic. In the public sector, of course, Arabic is much more
crucial.
Among GCC leaders, regard for Western education and train-
ing is very high. Western institutions of learning are viewed as
world-class and as having the highest standards. This is one reason
why Western and OECD expatriates enjoy high status and high
compensation in the Gulf. Another consequence of the high regard
for Western education—in addition to local educational facilities
being new and still catching up with global leaders—is that a
remarkably high proportion of senior Gulf leaders have been edu-
cated or trained in the West. Over the past three decades, the Gulf
states have sponsored tens of thousands of undergraduate and
graduate students each year to study in the West and especially in
the United States. In recent years, fiscal pressures due to population
growth have made the sponsorship process for Gulf-country