Saab president and chief executive Micael Johansson on Thursday said an EU plan to produce one million artillery shells a year was “realistic”, thanks in part to efforts made by the Swedish defence manufacturer to boost production.
Saab doubled its ammunitions production capacity before the war in Ukraine and is doubling it again, said Mr Johansson, speaking at a Brussels defence and security conference.
The company expects sales growth of 15 per cent this year as orders increase. Rising geopolitical tensions mean European countries are keen to restock their defence capacities after decades of peace.
Mr Johansson said his company alone would be able to produce 400,000 artillery rounds a year by early 2025.
“I think we have a fantastic defence industry in Europe,” he said. “It’s just that we need to collaborate a bit more, create ecosystems to be more sovereign within the EU and Europe.”
Speaking at the same forum, which was supported by the European Commission and the Belgian government, the bloc’s foreign and security chief Josep Borrell said the 27 member states would spend €70 billion ($76.5 billion) on increasing their defence capacities over the next three years.
“It’s quite a lot,” he said.
European politicians have expressed doubts about the bloc’s capacity to step up production quickly.
German MEP Christian Gahler has said that Europe's capacity was 300,000 shells a year. European Commission officials have declined to publicise the figure due to security concerns.
EU officials say they are responding to Ukraine's request for help as fast as they can, with joint-procurement plans to boost ammunition transfer to Ukraine at a cost of €1 billion and more recently, a proposal to use €500 million from the EU budget to increase ammunition production within the bloc.
Yet Mr Johansson said the EU was still lacking “real governance” and needed an authority that would be responsible for acquiring weapons. “We are working every day with [increased] capacity but how to access these projects is still a little uncertain,” he said.
Mr Johansson also criticised Europe’s continued reliance on the US in the defence sector and called for countries to raise their military spending goals from 2 per cent of GDP to 3 per cent of GDP.
Few members of the alliance achieve that goal but Nato is expected to raise that figure at a heads-of-government summit in Lithuania in July.
“There’s huge capacity for growth in some countries,” said Mr Johansson.
Europe has so far committed €16 billion of military support for Ukraine, according to Mr Borrell, through institutions in the bloc and on a bilateral basis. The US has committed $36.9 billion.
Mr Johansson recognised it was a sensitive time to highlight flaws in relations between the EU-US, historic allies that have rallied behind Ukraine to help it fend off Russia's invasion.
“I will put my neck out here but we are too dependent as the EU on the transatlantic link,” he said.
“If you look at the past four or five years, 60 per cent of defence capabilities and produce came from the US into Europe.”
Mr Borrell echoed Mr Johansson’s views, saying: “I was not a fan of [former US] President [Donald] Trump, but I think he was right on one thing: Europeans don’t share their part of the burden."
The US is also the number one contributor to Nato funds.
“Certainly, everybody prefers butter to cannons,” said Mr Borrell. “But sometimes if you don’t have cannons, you don’t have butter.”
Mr Borrell also addressed tense EU-China relations, which have recently come under intense scrutiny over a visit to France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.
China has sought to present itself as neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but Mr Borrell described Beijing's position as “pro-Russian neutrality”.
The EU must make diplomatic efforts to “not to push Russia in hands of China, and to ask China to use their influence to stop the war”, he said.
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POSSIBLE ENGLAND EURO 2020 SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford, Nick Pope, Dean Henderson.
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Midfielders: Declan Rice, Harry Winks, Jordan Henderson, Ross Barkley, Mason Mount, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Forwards: Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Tammy Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi.
What are NFTs?
Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.
You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”
However, while money is fungible, NFTs are not. “One Bitcoin, dollar, euro or dirham is largely indistinguishable from the next. Nothing ties a dollar bill to a particular owner, for example. Nor does it tie you to to any goods, services or assets you bought with that currency. In contrast, NFTs confer specific ownership,” Mr Das says.
This makes NFTs closer to a piece of intellectual property such as a work of art or licence, as you can claim royalties or profit by exchanging it at a higher value later, Mr Das says. “They could provide a sustainable income stream.”
This income will depend on future demand and use, which makes NFTs difficult to value. “However, there is a credible use case for many forms of intellectual property, notably art, songs, videos,” Mr Das says.
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 4 (Salah (pen 4, 33', & pen 88', Van Dijk (20')
Leeds United 3 (Harrison 12', Bamford 30', Klich 66')
Man of the match Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
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.”
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
Captain Marvel
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn
4/5 stars
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
- Cinematography, shots and movement.
- All aspects of post-production.
- Emerging technologies and VFX with AI and CGI.
- Understanding of marketing objectives and audience engagement.
- Tourism industry knowledge.
- Professional ethics.
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
