Israel wants peace with its neighbours in the region, Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on Tuesday as he opened the country's embassy in Abu Dhabi during the first official visit by a senior minister since relations were established last year with the UAE.
"We are standing here today because we chose peace over war," Mr Lapid said during the opening ceremony with Minister of Youth and Culture Noura Al Kaabi.
"Israel wants peace with its neighbours, with all its neighbours – we aren't going anywhere. The Middle East is our home, we're here to stay,” he said.
“We call on all the countries of the region to recognise that. And to come talk to us.”
He reiterated that the visit and agreements already made were just the beginning of relations between Israel and the UAE.
Israel's embassy is currently housed in a temporary location and has just three diplomats. However, Lior Haiat, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said they were "planning for it to be a big one, an important one".
Mr Lapid's visit comes nine months after the UAE and Bahrain moved to normalise relations with Israel with the signing of the historic Abraham Accord at a White House ceremony with then-president Donald Trump and then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As well as the UAE and Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have also begun normalising relations with Israel.
Over the past nine months, nearly 200,000 Israelis have visited the UAE and 12 agreements have been signed, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
The new Israeli foreign minister and alternate prime minister tweeted a photo of himself on the El Al flight to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday morning.
"Making history: proud to represent the State of Israel on its first official visit to the United Arab Emirates," Mr Lapid tweeted in Hebrew and Arabic. "Thanks for the warm welcome."
He was then welcomed on Tuesday morning at Abu Dhabi airport by Minister of State Ahmed Al Sayegh with a short ceremony before he travelled to the new Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi for the inauguration ceremony.
Mr Lapid, a centrist, is credited as the mastermind behind a coalition that this month unseated veteran right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu after more than a decade in office.
His two-day visit to the UAE will end on Wednesday after he visits Expo 2020 Dubai, a world fair that will begin in October and where Israel has a pavilion.
Following the visit, he will inaugurate the Israeli consulate in Dubai.
Mr Lapid met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Rome earlier this week. While in the Italian capital, he met Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani.
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
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Fixtures
Tuesday - 5.15pm: Team Lebanon v Alger Corsaires; 8.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Pharaohs
Wednesday - 5.15pm: Pharaohs v Carthage Eagles; 8.30pm: Alger Corsaires v Abu Dhabi Storms
Thursday - 4.30pm: Team Lebanon v Pharaohs; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Carthage Eagles
Friday - 4.30pm: Pharaohs v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Team Lebanon
Saturday - 4.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Team Lebanon
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Fixture: Liechtenstein v Italy, Tuesday, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match is shown on BeIN Sports
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
