DUBAI // Motorists in the Marina development will have to wait until the second half of next year for an end to the roadworks.
The road and tram line between Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) and the Marina has been under construction for three years, forcing residents to drive on a temporary road outside the 40-storey-plus towers.
A senior Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) official says the main work on the 10-kilometre first phase of the line will be completed by the middle of next year.
"We should be almost completed because then we can start testing the line and the carriages [for the new tram]," said Ahmad Al Hammadi, the chief executive of the RTA's Rail Agency.
"It will be mainly small civil works here and there, but the main works should be done by then."
The tram line will share that side of the road and will continue over to the other side on an elevated track that has just been completed along Sheikh Zayed Road.
Work on the tram line, originally due to open last year, slowed because of the economic downturn. The tram launch has been pushed back to November 2014.
"Now we have secured the financial package and the project will be kicking off within the coming three months back to full scale," Mr Al Hammadi said.
He said the contractors had been increasing manpower and productivity in the past few months. The disruptions have been going on so long that residents of Dubai Marina said it had become part of the Marina lifestyle.
"I've always known the Marina to have the middle of the roads dug up so any improvement would be better," said Grace Clarke, 34.
The sales executive said traffic was worse at the weekends and hoped the first phase of the work would reduce the number of cars on the road, "although it seems a lot of young guys like to drive around here and I doubt they will want to cruise around in a tram".
The first phase will go past Media City, Knowledge Village and the Police Academy, then loop back towards the Marina.
No date has been announced for the completion of the second phase, which will go as far as Mall of the Emirates and serve the Madinat Jumeirah area.
"If the roads were even straight it might make driving around here easier," said Mark Ashton, 45, a telecommunications specialist from Britain.
"Sometimes cars pull up at the side and you can't even pass them, which makes matters worse.
"The area is a nightmare on the weekends. There are no yellow boxes on the light junctions which get clogged by everyone trying to get down to [JBR walk]."
He was not optimistic that a tram would make much of difference in traffic.
"Of course the roadworks slow down the traffic but if the tram actually takes cars off the roads, I'll take it back," Mr Ashton said. "There are a lot of other factors down here that add to the traffic."
Mr Al Hammadi said the completion of the tram project was one of the RTA's priorities.
"The tram also intersects with the [Metro] Red Line at two stations and those using the Metro can change over," he said.
"It will give public transport more edge and connectivity."
eharnan@thenational.ae
Brief scores:
Newcastle United 1
Perez 23'
Wolverhampton Rovers 2
Jota 17', Doherty 90' 4
Red cards: Yedlin 57'
Man of the Match: Diogo Jota (Wolves)
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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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Race 3
Produced: Salman Khan Films and Tips Films
Director: Remo D’Souza
Cast: Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Bobby Deol, Daisy Shah, Saqib Salem
Rating: 2.5 stars
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Brief scores:
Toss: South Africa, chose to field
Pakistan: 177 & 294
South Africa: 431 & 43-1
Man of the Match: Faf du Plessis (South Africa)
Series: South Africa lead three-match series 2-0
What is type-1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is a genetic and unavoidable condition, rather than the lifestyle-related type 2 diabetes.
It occurs mostly in people under 40 and a result of the pancreas failing to produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugars.
Too much or too little blood sugar can result in an attack where sufferers lose consciousness in serious cases.
Being overweight or obese increases the chances of developing the more common type 2 diabetes.
Top tips to avoid cyber fraud
Microsoft’s ‘hacker-in-chief’ David Weston, creator of the tech company’s Windows Red Team, advises simple steps to help people avoid falling victim to cyber fraud:
1. Always get the latest operating system on your smartphone or desktop, as it will have the latest innovations. An outdated OS can erode away all investments made in securing your device or system.
2. After installing the latest OS version, keep it patched; this means repairing system vulnerabilities which are discovered after the infrastructure components are released in the market. The vast majority of attacks are based on out of date components – there are missing patches.
3. Multi-factor authentication is required. Move away from passwords as fast as possible, particularly for anything financial. Cybercriminals are targeting money through compromising the users’ identity – his username and password. So, get on the next level of security using fingertips or facial recognition.
4. Move your personal as well as professional data to the cloud, which has advanced threat detection mechanisms and analytics to spot any attempt. Even if you are hit by some ransomware, the chances of restoring the stolen data are higher because everything is backed up.
5. Make the right hardware selection and always refresh it. We are in a time where a number of security improvement processes are reliant on new processors and chip sets that come with embedded security features. Buy a new personal computer with a trusted computing module that has fingerprint or biometric cameras as additional measures of protection.
