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Saudi Arabia will lift travel restrictions from the UAE, South Africa and Argentina on Wednesday morning, the kingdom's Interior Ministry has announced.
As of 11am, the three countries are no longer on Saudi Arabia's red list meaning that people can travel to and from those destinations.
The Interior Ministry announcement on Tuesday night came after an evaluation of the Covid-19 situation, state media reported.
The change comes as part of a relaxation in coronavirus measures in the kingdom, such as allowing vaccinated residents to return to Saudi Arabia, even from red-list countries.
Saudi Arabia banned travel to the UAE on July 4 because of a surge in Covid-19 cases but the kingdom reassesses its red list of countries regularly and has been removing those with an improving coronavirus situation. Riyadh was concerned about the rapid spread of the more contagious Delta variant.
Saudis expressed joy at the prospect of being able to travel to the UAE. Saudi Arabia was the second-biggest source of tourists to Dubai in 2020 after India, Dubai Tourism said.
“This is the best news for me, personally," Mansour Al Saadi, a Saudi citizen living in Riyadh told The National. "I had crucial business in Dubai and had to fly out the day Saudi Arabia announced the ban. I remember leaving my apartment and a few belongings there within hours of the announcement. I’m going to fly out this weekend.”
For others, it meant a welcome break.
“Finally! My friends and I can’t wait to travel to Dubai. We haven’t travelled since the outbreak of the pandemic as we didn’t want to risk being stuck abroad," said Samar Darwish, a Saudi citizen living in Jeddah. "I am going to apply for leave this month. Dubai is my favourite place to be and trust me you’ll see all Saudis rushing there."
The move by the kingdom comes weeks before the start of Expo 2020 – a six-month-long global event involving 191 countries in Dubai that the government hopes will attract millions of visitors.
The world fair, which begins on October 1 with a grand event and runs through to March 2022, is one of the largest international events to take place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Saudi Arabia's move to allow travel to and from the UAE is the latest in a number of travel changes since the country opened up for the first time in 17 months in July.
At the end of August, a ban on travel from 20 countries, including India, Pakistan and Indonesia, was lifted. The move allowed thousands of expatriate workers to return after being stranded abroad for months.
Coronavirus cases have fallen in the kingdom in recent weeks.
The Health Ministry on Sunday reported 120 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections discovered in the country to 545,243.
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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.”
