ABU DHABI // A cultural exchange programme that will connect Abu Dhabi school pupils with students from dozens of countries was announced on Monday.
The One School One Country programme will take place as part of the WorldSkills Abu Dhabi competition in October. About 1,300 participants from 76 countries are expected to take part in the vocational and technical skills event – the first of its kind in the region.
Children from 59 Abu Dhabi schools will be paired with international teams competing in WorldSkills, which is held every two years in different host cities.
Nine-year-old Emirati Salama Anwar, a pupil at Abu Dhabi’s Al Muzdalifa School, was looking forward to learning about Vietnam, her school’s country.
“I know it’s a country in Asia and has nice crops grown there. It’s a beautiful place and has wonderful climate,” the Grade 4 pupil said.
“This event will give me a chance to know about other cultures. I have never been to Vietnam but I learnt about it from our school.”
Mubarak Al Shamsi, director general of the Abu Dhabi Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (Actvet), said the competition is a celebration of youth and for youth.
“The bonds of friendship we witness for the first time will grow in the coming months as the school students and teams learn more about each other,” Mr Al Shamsi said.
Grade 4 pupil Sawsan Al Hina, from Al Rahba School in Abu Dhabi, said her school is paired with The Netherlands.
“I am happy that it happens here in our city. It will teach us about another country, people and their culture,” she said.
Simon Bartley, the president of WorldSkills, who attended the programme’s launch in Abu Dhabi, said it will help ensure the pupils’ future.
“By the very act of partnering with competitors from WorldSkills members, they will create an understanding which will help create a peaceful future, a peaceful future for them and their children, and their children’s children,” he said.
WorldSkills will be open to the public, free of charge, at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre from October 15 to 18. About 100,000 people are expected to visit the event, organised by EmiratesSkills, a subsidiary of Actvet.
“This is the first time we are hosting it here in Abu Dhabi, as we became a member of it in 1999,” said Ali Al Marzouqi, president of EmiratesSkills. “We hope that the UAE will win some medals in this world championship of skills.”
Participants will compete in 51 categories, which include aircraft engineering, mobile robotics, cooking, floristry and 3-D digital design. The 34 members of the UAE team will compete in 30 of the categories.
Gold medal winners will receive Dh300,000, silver Dh200,000 and bronze Dh100,000. Medallions of excellence will also be awarded, with prizes of Dh50,000.
anwar@thenational.ae
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.”
