PALME Middle East, the region’s only trade event dedicated to professional lighting, audio, music, entertainment, audio visual and systems integration solutions, is being held this year from the 21st to the 23rd of May at the Dubai International Convention Centre. Professionals from the light and sound industry are eagerly looking forward to...
The spending on interiors and fit-outs in the GCC are expected to swell during 2013, by 28 percent overall to USD 7.2 billion. These figures were reported by INDEX International Design Exhibition and The Office Exhibition, the Middle East and North Africa’s largest and longest-running interior design and fit-out exhibition,...
Three Qatari government-owned companies have decided to set up a USD 1 billion fund to invest in overseas energy infrastructure projects. An official announcement by Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) reveals that it would establish the fund in collaboration with Qatar Petroleum International and Qatar Holding, the Arab states’...
2013 Invesco Middle East Asset Management Study 20% of Sovereign Wealth Fund new assets allocated to private equity Property and infrastructure are not the big SWF ‘alternative investment’ story Major sovereign governments and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in the Middle East are increasingly considering new private equity models for investment,...
Celebrating a century of Indian cinema under sunny skies at Cannes Film Festival 2013 Sunny days and bright skies mark the landscape of Cannes today. Though the rains originally brought with them the magic of silver screen romance, the stars were visibly fraught trying to prevent wardrobe malfunction and putting...
Media reports suggest the UAE Central Bank is designing new legislation to tighten regulations for money exchange houses in the country. This, after the closure of two such companies for violating industry rules. The licenses of two exchanges, namely Al Hilal Exchange and Asia Exchange Centre, were revoked for “major...
Data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) shows that the UAE is most popular tourism destination in the Arab world. The UAE was rated as the most popular destination, ahead of countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Overall, the Emirate secured the 31st position in the world,...
The quarterly business confidence survey conducted by the Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED) reveals that businesses in Dubai are confident of achieving continued growth in the second quarter of 2013. The survey highlights that confidence runs particularly high among small and medium enterprises (SME) and export firms. These businesses...
The rains are relentless at Cannes as the red carpets get soaked, and celebrities sashay around underneath their umbrellas. Sometimes one gets the feeling that the Rain Gods are creating a setting akin to the movies being screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Beautiful, dark & sombre. You get the...
A special report on Beautyworld Middle East 2013 “A Perfume is a message in a bottle. It’s not a smell. It’s an Impression, an idea.” ~Luca Turin, Perfume critic and Author~ Visiting the enigmatic Souks of the Middle East, always leaves one in a haze of de-ja-vu, the hazy mix of...
The Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME), Britain’s largest standalone Islamic bank, plans to set up an office in Dubai to expand on it’s offerings in capital markets and wealth management. The bank is experiencing 15 percent growth in assets this year, with the GCC move expected to...
The 66th Cannes Film Festival has kicked off under thunderous torrential rain, adding to the charm of a French Riviera more famous for it’s warm and sunny days. The cinematic glamour quotient has once again brought the spotlight to the quiet, exotic city of Cannes; where movies, fortune and creative...
Qatar Holding has bought a 40 percent stake in a new 290,000-square metre skyscraper project near the centre of Milan, it was announced on Friday. Porta Nuova represents one of the most prestigious city center mixed use developments in Europe with a market value in excess of € 2 billion....
A survey says that GCC family businesses need to focus on developing a proper governance structure in order to ensure business continuity and sustainable growth. In the absence of a governance structure, these businesses face a heightened risk of fragmentation due to conflicting interests among family shareholders. The PwC survey...
Research shows the disparity between smartphone users and advertising spend on mobile and digital in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remains one of the highest in the world, offering huge potential for growth in the future. The report by Deloitte, titled The Telecoms Media and Technology Predictions...
On the 27th and 28th of May 2013, the Kingdom of Bahrain will be hosting the 9th Annual World Islamic Funds and Financial Markets Conference (WIFFMC 2013). This is the most anticipated and largest gathering of influentials from the Islamic investments sector and this year will include participation from more than 400...
Imagine yourself lying on the lush green of a secluded polo estate, sipping on a cool beverage as you watch the sun set over the dunes. You look to your right and see the tall palm trees against the stretch of the desert behind, as a herd of horses glide...
A real estate report highlighting the Doha real estate market is expected to remain stable and may even witness a surge in unit sales and rentals over the coming months. In the residential real estate sector, the Al Asmakh Real Estate Q1 report points out that demand in Doha will...
An announcement by Dubai-based SKAI Holdings, a real estate investment firm, has revealed it’s plans to build a USD 1 billion hotel with more than 200 serviced apartments in Palm Jumeirah. The new project will be operated by the Viceroy Hotel and Resorts, marking its entry into Dubai after undertaking...
The results of the Family Business Survey 2012, conducted by PwC, were revealed this week by the Dubai Women Business Council (DBWC). According to the study, Middle East family businesses are thriving. An impressive 83 percent of Middle East family businesses have seen sales increase over the past year, compared with...
According to a global survey of CIO’s by Gartner Inc. Executive Programmes, by 2016, many companies expect to stop providing client devices (38 percent) to workers. The predicted trend is an outcome of bring your own device (BYOD) programmes advancing across many global organizations. The study titled ‘Bring Your Own Device: New...
According to the recently released Deloitte GCC Powers of Construction Report, 2013 is a year of optimism and opportunity in the GCC construction sector. The report titled ‘GCC Powers of Construction: Meeting the challenges of delivering mega projects’, proposes that the opportunities presented within the Middle Eastern construction sector this year can be...
One of the key findings of the recently released Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2013 report says that several LTE Networks are expected to launch in the MENA region this year. Inline with the expected trend, Huawei, a global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, predicts the expansion of...
A new study reveals the UAE has raced past Saudi Arabia to become the biggest construction market in the Middle East for the first time since 2008. The report by accountancy firm Deloitte reveals that contracts worth USD 16.2 billion were awarded in the Emirate last year. Compared to Saudi...
The government of Abu Dhabi intends to establish a full-service financial zone on Al Maryah Island near Abu Dhabi’s city centre. Initial reports suggest that the zone would have an independent administration and court system to attract banks and other financial institutions from all over the world. Some market observers...
According to a recently released Oracle Survey, EMEA businesses are struggling to protect their value chains. The EMEA region includes Europe (UK, France, Germany, Russia, the Nordics, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey) and the Middle East and Africa. The UAE was one of the countries included in the survey. The report titled Managing the Value...
Currently, the UAE’s tourism and hospitality industry is suffering from skills gaps. This implies that the current workforce are lacking the desired level of skill sets to deliver optimum performance. This is a serious concern as the industry accounts for one-in-nine jobs. In an attempt to address the critical issues,...
The government of Brazil is keen to attract greater investment from the UAE and other GCC countries to boost the huge potential offered by it’s economy and it’s rapidly growing population. Brazil is currently seeking investments of up to USD 500 billion for projects in various sectors in the Brazilian...
U.S. authorities have revealed that two companies with major operations in India, and GCC banks, were targeted by a cell of global cyber criminals. EnStage Inc and ElectraCard Services are the two companies which were affected by the USD 45 million theft. According to U.S. prosecutors, hackers broke into the...
Bayt.com poll reveals that 52% of GCC residents believe that localisation efforts by local governments are effective 23.5% believe that nationals need better educational and vocational training facilities A Nationalization in the GCC poll conducted by Bayt.com, the region’s number one job site, reveals that GCC nationals feel they are...
Booz & Company examines the strong need for developers in the MENA region to learn from their past mistakes and build new core and differentiating capabilities – so as to ensure a successful and sustainable future in the real estate sector The property market bust that occurred in 2009-2010 in...
With the GCC states investing up to USD 121 billion in different road and bridge infrastructure projects, the asset management industry is enjoying an unprecedented boom across the region. Some of the latest methodologies and strategies in asset risk management, asset reliability and asset information will be shared with asset...
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 3 million years. After resting comfortably below 300ppm for the past 30,000 centuries, CO2 levels in the planetary atmosphere have suddenly jumped to 400ppm within the past 2 centuries. “It couldn’t be us,...
Dubai will be competing against four candidate cities bidding to host the Expo 2020 – Sao Paulo in Brazil, Izmir in Turkey, Yekaterinburg in Russia and Ayutthaya in Thailand. The winner will be announced in November 2013 following a vote by the 163 member nations of the Bureau International des...
Women in Qatar may be ambitious and eager to join the workforce upon graduation, but they constantly face invisible barriers of tradition in a male-dominated society. More Qatari women have university degrees than men, yet female participation in the workforce is only about 35 percent, well below the national percentages...
A new report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) has painted a bleak outlook of unemployment for youth of the MENA region, with about a third of the youths expected to be jobless in five years. However, global youth unemployment was also likely to increase over the same period, as...
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is believed to be actively seeking new acquisition targets across the world to diversify its already growing portfolio of assets. A new report by the KPMG, revealing investment trends of sovereign wealth funds (SWF’s) in UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, highlights how QIA has developed a...
Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has issued a new law to regulate the licensing and classification of hotel establishments in the Emirate. The new rule gives the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) the status of official body to handle the licensing and classification of...
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority is in the final stages of developing a regulatory framework to allow foreigners to own stocks directly. The move is being viewed as a way to promote greater foreign investment in the Kingdom, although the market does not need liquidity from...
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