The momentum of the "Arab Spring" has been mesmerising, yet the future is uncertain.
The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) lags behind other emerging markets in ease of doing business and in competitiveness, and it is undeniable that social change must go hand in hand with economic reform.
The Arab world must embrace a reliable path to economic growth. Nurturing an entrepreneurial culture is crucial.
According to the Doing Business 2011 report by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, Mena still lags behind East Asia and the Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe and Central Asia in terms of the most business-friendly environments.
The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index reveals that much of the Arab world is held back by institutions that do not allow for talent mobility and lack high-quality professional management.
Without an economic and social environment supportive of entrepreneurship, efficiency suffers, talent is wasted, education is undervalued, competitiveness is hobbled and growth is imperilled.
The Arab world must lay the educational foundations to produce the next generation of entrepreneurs, and challenge barriers to entrepreneurial activity. Both are essential for ensuring sustainable growth within a highly competitive global economy and to guarantee that the youths driving change in the Arab Spring can look forward to a future that includes being gainfully employed.
With such a young population in Arab countries, there is an urgent question about how to create the jobs that are needed in the short, medium and long term to capitalise on this particular demographic.
To this end, we need open discussion of the cultural and institutional barriers to entrepreneurship in the Arab world. This discussion should be frank about where social and political institutions are too conservative, and take steps to end institutional secrecy, and therefore combat corruption.
The discussion must challenge deeply ingrained habits, such as making promotions on the basis of family connections and social status, as well as challenging overly bureaucratic attitudes in which decision-making becomes complex, laborious and above all, slow.
Ultimately, discussion should channel the momentum for political change further, into inspiring confidence in the essentials of entrepreneurship - meritocracy, transparency and education.
The benefits that can flow from challenging barriers to entrepreneurship are immense in terms of unlocking human potential and setting out paths for growth, recovery and progress by fuelling innovation, employment generation and social empowerment.
The opportunity to create the right climate for entrepreneurship should be seized now, while there is still time to reap the benefits. In the past, inaction may have been encouraged by reliance on the economic gift of oil.
That gift will not last forever.
Not every Arab nation in the region has benefited from oil - particularly Egypt, which has by some distance the greatest population in the region.
Yet even the oil-producing states with the greatest reserves must plan for the inevitable day when the oil runs out. The pursuit of a more open and entrepreneurial economic model will help to diversify economic activity as peak oil passes.
A more transparent and meritocratic structure would also provide new tools to deal with the region's pressing demographic issue.
The Arab world has some of the world's youngest populations. This increases pressure on resources and threatens an exponential growth in unemployment.
The encouragement of entrepreneurship, together with the open and even-handed administration of public policy, must be an essential element in providing sustainable, diversified economic growth in the Arab world. The competitive nature of the world economy offers clear rewards for countries that implement best practice in these areas.
* Børge Brende is the managing director of government relations and constituents engagement at the World Economic Forum, which is holding a meeting on economic growth and job creation in the Arab world, in Jordan, starting tomorrow.
Bullet Train
Director: David Leitch
Stars: Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Sandra Bullock
Rating: 3/5
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
THE SWIMMERS
Director: Sally El-Hosaini
Stars: Nathalie Issa, Manal Issa, Ahmed Malek and Ali Suliman
Rating: 4/5
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Kill Bill Volume 1
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine and Michael Madsen
Rating: 4.5/5
The Two Popes
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce
Four out of five stars
Blue Beetle
Director: Angel Manuel Soto
Stars: Xolo Mariduena, Adriana Barraza, Damian Alcazar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon, George Lopez
Rating: 4/5
Company Profile
Company name: Cargoz
Date started: January 2022
Founders: Premlal Pullisserry and Lijo Antony
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 30
Investment stage: Seed
US PGA Championship in numbers
1 Joost Luiten produced a memorable hole in one at the par-three fourth in the first round.
2 To date, the only two players to win the PGA Championship after winning the week before are Rory McIlroy (2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and Tiger Woods (2007, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational). Hideki Matsuyama or Chris Stroud could have made it three.
3 Number of seasons without a major for McIlroy, who finished in a tie for 22nd.
4 Louis Oosthuizen has now finished second in all four of the game's major championships.
5 In the fifth hole of the final round, McIlroy holed his longest putt of the week - from 16ft 8in - for birdie.
6 For the sixth successive year, play was disrupted by bad weather with a delay of one hour and 43 minutes on Friday.
7 Seven under par (64) was the best round of the week, shot by Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari on Day 2.
8 Number of shots taken by Jason Day on the 18th hole in round three after a risky recovery shot backfired.
9 Jon Rahm's age in months the last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the US PGA, in 1995.
10 Jimmy Walker's opening round as defending champion was a 10-over-par 81.
11 The par-four 11th coincidentally ranked as the 11th hardest hole overall with a scoring average of 4.192.
12 Paul Casey was a combined 12 under par for his first round in this year's majors.
13 The average world ranking of the last 13 PGA winners before this week was 25. Kevin Kisner began the week ranked 25th.
14 The world ranking of Justin Thomas before his victory.
15 Of the top 15 players after 54 holes, only Oosthuizen had previously won a major.
16 The par-four 16th marks the start of Quail Hollow's so-called "Green Mile" of finishing holes, some of the toughest in golf.
17 The first round scoring average of the last 17 major champions was 67.2. Kisner and Thorbjorn Olesen shot 67 on day one at Quail Hollow.
18 For the first time in 18 majors, the eventual winner was over par after round one (Thomas shot 73).
'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness'
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams
Rating: 3/5
THURSDAY'S FIXTURES
4pm Maratha Arabians v Northern Warriors
6.15pm Deccan Gladiators v Pune Devils
8.30pm Delhi Bulls v Bangla Tigers
