The UAE's newest industrial zone aiming to diversify the economy is being developed in the Abu Dhabi desert with a focus on creating an indigenous defence industry.
Tawazun Holding has begun marketing its Tawazun Industrial Park, located at Zayed Military City, which will become home to advanced, precision industries such as autonomous systems, armoured vehicles and guided rockets.
The project is linked to the country's offsets system, which seeks to leverage the military's huge arms purchases and encourage foreign companies to transfer technology and set up local manufacturing.
"Tawazun Industrial Park has been set up to create a 'knowledge hub' for defence and precision manufacturing in Abu Dhabi," announced the holding company, which is a subsidiary of the UAE Offset Program Bureau. "It reflects Abu Dhabi's long-term ambitions to develop specialist areas of expertise in key industries."
Artistic impressions show a master-planned community with modern warehouse and factory buildings, along with residential and commercial office space. Tawazun is expected to announce further details of the industrial park next week during the International Defence Exhibition and Conference beginning on Sunday in Abu Dhabi.
Already, anchor tenants at the zone include Caracal, a gun maker, and Burkan Munitions Systems, which manufactures aircraft bombs, artillery, naval rounds and small arms ammunition.
The zone is also home to Tawazun Precision Industries, a high-end machining firm that has secured contracts with Airbus. Last year Tawazun said an unnamed joint venture would also soon be formed at the park to build an ammunition plant for 9mm, 5.56mm and 7.62mm bullets.
The UAE is one of the world's largest arms buyers and has requirements for suppliers to help contribute to the local economy through projects including joint ventures such as Burkan, which was a partnership between Al Jaber Group of the UAE and Germany's Rheinmetall Munitions.
Matar al Romaithi, the director of the industrial development unit at the offset agency, said the UAE's ambitions for a local defence industry were focused on land and naval systems; munitions and weapons, aeronautics systems, advanced and precision machining, and autonomous systems.
Within these industries, the capabilities that the UAE was looking to acquire, Mr al Romaithi said, included expertise in design, engineering, systems integration, manufacturing and testing, programme management as well as maintenance and repair.
The UAE's seven emirates have all pursued industrial zones to attract foreign investment and cluster together companies within similar industries.
In the capital, Mubadala Development, a strategic investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, and Abu Dhabi Airports Company are building an aerospace cluster in Al Ain that should create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next 10 years, and already is home to a composite aircraft parts company, Strata.
By 2013 the zone should receive its second anchor tenant, the Advanced Military Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Centre, specialising in military aircraft maintenance.
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Men from Barca's class of 99
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MATCH INFO
Rugby World Cup (all times UAE)
Final: England v South Africa, Saturday, 1pm
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
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B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
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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.”
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Scores
Rajasthan Royals 160-8 (20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders 163-3 (18.5 ov)
