The first entirely Emirati-made satellite was praised for its "outstanding performance" on Tuesday – exactly one year since it went into space.
KhalifaSat was launched into the skies on board a rocket from an island off the southern tip of Japan on October 29 last year.
It was heralded as an "unprecedented Emirati achievement' by UAE leaders at the time – and senior members of the country's space programme have been encouraged by its results in the past 12 months.
KhalifaSat was designed and built at the Space Technology Laboratories of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai.
Its role is to beam high-quality images to a ground station in the emirate.
The pictures will help governments and private companies across the globe tackle a range of challenges, from climate change and disaster relief to urban planning.
KhalifaSat has taken 7,250 high-quality images and completed 5,431 low Earth orbits since its momentous launch date.
During a busy year, the satellite has communicated with its ground station 906 times to send 355 terabytes of information and images.
"Today [October 29] marks one year since the launch of KhalifaSat, the first satellite developed 100 per cent in the UAE by a team of highly qualified Emirati engineers," said Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director general of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.
"After the outstanding performance, images and analysis it has provided, we celebrate the culmination of one of the UAE’s major achievements. This success proves that our youth can enjoy more achievements, reflecting the aspirations of our wise leadership."
Amer Al Ghafri, director of the space systems development department and KhalifaSat project manager, was impressed by the satellite's progress.
"One year after its launch, KhalifaSat is performing very well. It is still ahead of other satellites in the region, in monitoring and analysis. KhalifaSat will be able to capture more images in the next few years," he said.
In its 365 days orbiting the Earth, KhalifaSat captured images of Palm Jumeirah, Al Maktoum Stadium, Kingdom Centre, Masjid al-Haram in Makkah, Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophet's Mosque), the Federal Territory Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from where the first Emirati astronaut, Maj Hazza Al Mansouri, travelled to space.
The satellite also beamed back images of major projects and achievements in the UAE and its construction work, including at Abu Dhabi International Airport and the surrounding area, in addition to the construction developments around Louvre Abu Dhabi.
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.”
Test squad: Azhar Ali (captain), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Imam-ul-Haq, Imran Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan(wicketkeeper), Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Shan Masood, Yasir Shah
Twenty20 squad: Babar Azam (captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Musa Khan, Shadab Khan, Usman Qadir, Wahab Riaz
