Dubai debt won’t hit Kochi port

The Saudi world’s debt restructuring is worrying for Kerala on more than one count. Over 40% of the state’s 25-lakh-strong expatriate community is in the UAE. A couple of mega infrastructure projects — including the International Transshipment Container Terminal funded by Dubai Ports World, a subsidiary of Dubai World — in Kochi look up to their Dubai-based promoters.

Cochin port trust chairman N Ramachandran is surprised by the news from Dubai. “We have never felt any fund crunch in the terminal’s work. The work is progressing smoothly and there is no crisis,” he said. The first phase of the Rs2,118-crore project is expected to be over by April 2010.

Finance minister TM Thomas Isaac said the financial crisis in Dubai would snowball into a social problem in Kerala. “Lakhs of Keralites are working in the UAE and other West Asian countries, especially in the construction field. Foreign remittance is the mainstay of our economy. Any problem there will reflect in our budget,” he said.

Chief minister VS Achuthanandan may have foreseen the economic crisis in West Asia. Commenting on Dubai-based Tecom, which has signed a deal with the state government to build the Rs1,700-crore Smart City Kochi in 2007, he said that the company was in a pathetic condition.