Dubai: As the Indian rupee continues to dive, the massive Indian business community in the United Arab Emirates, one of the country's largest trade partner, is struggling to cope with the effects of the plunging currency.
At Natali Singh's fabric and garment shop in Dubai, the workers have found benefits from the rupee's poor performance, because they are sending more money back home as a result of a weaker rupee to the dirham, the UAE's currency.
However, Singh points out that transferring a business from India to the UAE nowadays has become financially prohibitive.
"Employees are really happy because they are sending money to India, back, and they are getting a really good amount (in currency exchange from dirham to rupee)," she said.
Exchange rates present a major boon for the majority of the 2 (m) million-strong Indian expatriates working in unskilled and semi-skilled professions whose families rely on regular remittances.
However, for investors from India who want to start business in the UAE, the cost of buying products within Indiaand transferring their business has been made harder by the unstable currency.
"It's not good for the businessmen because, if I am running a business (in India), and I am importing my business from India (to the UAE), all my garments and stuff, it's all Indian-ware, and now the (exchange) rate is really expensive," said Singh.
The Indian community within the Emirates makes up over 30 per cent of the Persian Gulf nation's total population.
They form an integral part of the local economy, a diverse group of labourers and businessmen who came in search of financial success, capitalising on the historic economic ties between the two countries.
With the rupee falling to new lows against the (US) dollar on a near daily basis, most within the Indian business community remain in a state of shock, uncertain of the future of the troubled currency.
"It was never expected that (the) rupee could ever fall by a level of 20 to 25 percent in the past almost 12 weeks. It's absolutely incomprehensible," said Paras Shahdadpuri, President of Indian Business and Professional Council in the UAE and Chairman of global conglomerate Nikai Group.
Walking through Dubai's famous Gold Souk, which caters to India's voracious appetite for the precious metal, seen as a safe alternative to the country's banking sector, the effects of the collapse of the rupee are increasingly evident.
Earlier this year in the shop of gold seller Nilesh Mandaliya, customers had to fight for space on the cramped sales floor, now hours pass without a single customer entering.
His shop, Sona Jewellers, was popular with Indian expatriates, including labourers purchasing wedding gifts, but has now seen a severe drop in business.
According to Mandaliya, labourers and businessmen who once purchased gold from his shop now prefer to send money back home to their families, making the most of the strength of the dirham against the rupee.
"(A) work person here in Dubai, he sends money (home), he gets too much (many) Indian Rupees (to the dirham). First we had dirham to rupees at 15, 16. But right now it's at 18, 19, (something) like that. So his income (from transferring dirhams to India) is doubling, in rupees," he said.
The Indian government is worried because the slumping rupee threatens to worsen two important barometers of the nation's financial standing - its budget, already in deficit because of subsidised oil imports, and the overseas trade account, also deeply in the red.
The Indian economy, Asia's third largest, grew 5 per cent in the financial year ending in March, its slowest in a decade and well off the 8 per cent pace it had averaged over those 10 years.
Amongst the Indian expatriate community in Dubai, optimism is increasingly scarce.
"I don't think it's ever going to end soon," says Singh.
"Nowadays it's like 18.35 or something, one dirham is 18.35 rupees, but I feel like within a day or two it might touch 20," she added.
