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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1735)	1/30/1998 10:10:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

OK I've heard that quite many used to work in Kuwait and Oman, but in rather low-scale jobs like babysitting and servants, house maids, etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thomas: Allow me: I don't have the stats for the whole of India,but from our state there approx.couple of million people who still works in the Gulf States,mostly UAE,Oman,Qatar & Bahrain etc. True,a lot of them are low-skilled workers but quite a few are business men,technicians,engineers,doctors and the like.As an example I got 3 engineers,a pathologist,a cardiologist,and a chartered accountant from my family working in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. So I don't quite see why a rich Indian would hide his money in the Gulf region. I'd much rather expect to bump into him right here on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich! 1.probably business interests 2.probable lack of an extradition treaty in some kingdoms (if one is a crook that is) 3.Proximity and oh don't be surprised if you run into a crooked indian politician or businessman on the Bahnhofstrasse.<ggg> I don't know what Worswick meant by 'Gulf Link',perhaps the same or if not i am sure he will respond,i hope.

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (1735)	1/30/1998 11:18:00 AM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Thomas links to the Gulf and Western India go back centuries and, of course, millenia. Moving ahead from the time of Alexander's march across the wastes of Persia to more modern times many of the mercantile communities of Western India have century-long generational links with Gulf trading, and Gulf trading communities. The Portuguese and later the English both had trading stations in the Gulf. Kuwait, for instance, was a British trading station. Historically, much of the 19th century Western India/Gulf trade was controlled by the Parsis, a Zoarastrain community originally from Persia, and by the Ismaili and Bora Muslim communities. (I am leaving out many other communities for simplicities sake) Today in the last twenty years much of the work of Western India has shifted - in those communities which are involved with the Gulf - from gold smuggling into India to supplying the Gulf with a "middle class" infrastructure. Most of what we consider middle class work in the west is done in the Gulf by Indians and Pakistanis, who expatriate themselves to the Gulf for various periods with and without their families. There is very little loved lost between the employers and the people doing the actual work of the Gulf. During the Gulf war, interestingly, "the disturbances" cut off much of the income of India . India was plunged into a balance of payments situation that was a downward spiral towards hell; that, in turn, led to an IMF bailout. At least until the late 1980's India was vastly dependent upon expatriate income to support the Indian economy. When that money stopped.. As to my truck loads of money leaving India, which I commented upon in an earlier post , bascially all Indian commerce in the Gulf and elsewhere until recently was conducted under the ancient system of hundi. That is a system that uses a bill of exchange - a hundi - which can be encashed anywhere in the world for a like amount of money with a fraternal merchant "in league" with the merchant from whom you purchased the bill of exchange. The actual hundi would be a note saying something like ."My friend Mohan.this is to introduce ..give this man ten pounds of salt." The tax authorities be damned. Tyrants be damned! Ancient Cyber cash. Why the Gulf versus Switzerland? Good question Thomas. Basically, you have to go back to the complexion of politics and the criminal groups in Western India. It is my feeling that the real basmashes of the West coast in the Bombay area are Muslim. It is not a far step then for the crooked politician to go to the leader of the big criminal gang in Bombay and get a a hundi for the Gulf. Swiss bankers are good Thomas but believe me the gulf bankers, BCCI notwithstanding, are totally and absolutely bulletproof. Nobody is going to reach these people because their lives, the lives of their children and grandchildren, are at risk if they go back on a deal. The Gulf bankers then invest their money in the west. An interesting sidelight - trying to piece the bombings together in Bombay in 1994? - was that the bombers who set off munitions in, amongst other places, the stock exchange were never really vigorously prosecuted. Reading my newspapers it seems the perps were a Muslim gang who was intent on paying back the persecution and murder of Muslims in the riots after the Surat pneumonic plague. After the bombs went off the Hindus didn't murder Muslims anymore. Basically, you don't **** with the gang. In Western India it is my impression the gang here includes the Gulf bankers. These people are discrete. I suppose the Ghandi family, in the Bofors period, and the Bhutto's (recently) were just victims of their westernized education. They believed in European bank secrecy. Once I was going to start some offshore bank centers. There is bank secrecy and bank secrecy Thomas. It depends upon who you owe doesn't it?