HI there, that's Qatari law regarding the gratuity payments, quite similar to UAE, I'd say.
Article (54)
In addition to any sums to which the worker is entitled to upon the expiry of his service, the employer shall pay the end of service gratuity to the worker who has completed employment of one year or more. This gratuity shall be agreed upon by the two parties, provided that it is not less than a three-week wage for every year of employment. The worker shall be entitled to gratuity for the fractions of the year in proportion to the duration of employment.
The worker’s service shall be considered continuous if it is terminated in cases other than those stipulated in article 61 of this Law and is returned to service within two months of its termination.
The last basic wage shall be the base for the calculation of the gratuity.
The employer is entitled to deduct from the service gratuity the amount due to him by the worker.
However according to the article 56 one has got the choice either to take provident fund or the gratuity, whichever is higher.
Article (56)
The employer who maintains a retirement system or a similar system which secures for the worker a greater benefit than the end of service gratuity to which the worker is entitled under the provisions of Article (54) of this law shall not be obligated to pay to the worker the end of service gratuity in addition to the benefit available to the worker under the said system.
If the net benefit accruing to the worker under the said system is less than the end of service gratuity the employer shall pay to the worker the end of service gratuity and return to him any sum whereby the worker may have contributed to the said system.
The worker may choose to receive either the end of service gratuity or the pension accruing to him under the said system.
Guess the UAE labour law would be the same.
Dune, you are absolutely right about the bloody bench mark chasing from fund managers. That's all they care about in a not active managed portfolio. Ergo the fund performance just reflects the basic movements of the market, which isn't supposed to be the idea of managing the money. More even they usually charge up to 2 % management fee+performance fee up to 20 % (subject of the contract)+initial fee, like bid ask spread. All in all you pay initially up to 5% and by the and of the year another 2% and possibly performance fee, for just buying some shares with rating better than A+ (Standard & Poor). I think, you would agree, one can do it himself, all you need is just a broker.
MR8, i agree with you about the advantage of operative access to the financial instruments in order to be able to reshuffle your assets. However I don't think it would help you in case of mutual funds, as you will just end up where you were, unless you keep it in cash. Another solution, much cheaper one , would be THE ETF_ exchangeable traded funds. The are classified as Shares and traded on NYSE or other mayor Exchanges.
http://www.ishares.com/splash.jhtml;...questid=924747 Its much cheaper as you only pay the difference of bid ask price and can trade them just online whenever you want. I can warmly recomend
www.saxobank.com as a broker. Besides that you can go for Type 0 funds, which are actively managed.
The question is how to combine it with the compulsory provident fund payment and how to convince the office of the better solution.
Hope that could help somehow,
Cheers.
