Rush hour on the Abu Dhabi-Dubai road is a well-known headache. From next month, it is set to get worse.
A major construction project announced by the Department of Transport on Tuesday will shut portions of the E11 motorway near the Al Samha Adnoc station, disrupting traffic on a road typically used by around 4,500 cars an hour. Work is expected to begin before the new year.
Abduljaliel Kseibi expressed dismay at the news. "It takes me an hour and 30 minutes driving. The traffic is really bad so I always try to leave very early from my house to avoid it so I will not be late for work," said the 28-year-old raw material buyer at Emirates Steel Industries in Musaffah. "The construction is just going to make life harder, it is bad."
The motorway is being constructed to increase the number of lanes in each direction from four to six along a 4.5-kilometre stretch.
The Department of Transport says it will create detours and alternate routes, thought no information on these has been announced.
In addition to the widening, a new junction, the Sheikh Khalifa interchange, will be built at Al Samha.
Construction at the new Sheikh Khalifa port, 50km or so northwest of Abu Dhabi island, is creating traffic problems on the tiny streets of the towns along the Abu Dhabi-Dubai road.
Massive lorries carrying raw materials to the construction site rumble through previously quiet neighbourhoods in Al Samha, Al Rahba and Al Taweela.
At 3pm on Thursday, school buses from the Al Samha girls' school jockeyed for position with lorries and cars to enter the single-lane roundabout in Al Samha East.
The town is bisected by the highway. Pupils have to cross a two-lane bridge to get from school to their homes at Al Sahma West. Lorries use this bridge, too.
Around 500 lorries a day travel from the Khalifa Ports Company's staging ground in Al Samha East to the construction site on the other side of the Abu Dhabi-Dubai road.
As construction on the port ramps up in the coming months, that number is likely to increase.
The narrow roads and bridge were not designed for this kind of traffic. A sign indicates that the maximum load the bridge can bear is 60 tonnes. A fully loaded lorry can easily weigh 20 to 40 tonnes.
The new Sheikh Khalifa interchange will be 10 lanes wide. Another small bridge, similar to the one already connecting Al Samha, will be built to the nearby town of Ghanada.
According to Faisal Ahmed al Suwaidi, the general director of main roads at the Department of Transport, the Dh592m construction project was the result of "major developments" in the emirate. Construction is expected to take two years, he said.
Ali Mohammed Ali, 35, a public relations officer at Dubai Sport City, expressed resignation at the news.
"[My commute] takes me an hour and 30 minutes to two hours sometimes," he said. "I always wake up very early and I'm having back pains from all the driving I do. I hope all they're doing will help in the end."
smclain@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Samar al Huneidi
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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