Air India Express issues Covid guidelines for UAE passengers

Passengers arriving in India from the UAE must be fully immunised and follow Covid-19 protocols on flights and all entry points, international budget carrier Air India Express said.

They will also have to undergo testing if they show Covid-related symptoms upon arrival or during a self-monitoring period.

They will also have to take precautions including, preferably, the use of masks.

Post-arrival random testing, however, will not be required for children under 12 years of age.

"All guests should preferably be fully vaccinated as per the approved primary schedule of vaccination against Covid-19 in their country,” Air India Express said in a tweet.

On November 7, the UAE lifted nearly all Covid-19 restrictions in the country after a steady decline in cases.

Only a small number of measures remain in place, including masks to be worn inside health facilities and hospitals.

The country is among the most thoroughly-vaccinated in the world and has conducted about 25 million PCR tests nationwide since the emergence of the coronavirus.

The guidelines are the first issued by an airline in the country since restrictions were removed earlier this year. Authorities began random Covid testing at various airports in response to increasing case numbers globally, particularly in neighbouring China.

Air India Express, which has its headquarters in the city of Kochi in the southern state of Kerala, flies to countries in West Asia and South-East Asia.

It is run by a fully-owned division of Air India, which was bought by the Tata group this year.

India has also made rapid Covid tests mandatory for international passengers coming from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand as Covid case numbers continue to surge worldwide.

Those found to be symptomatic or test positive for Covid, will be put under quarantine.

A woman and her six-year-old daughter who returned from China via Colombo tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday. They had landed at Madurai airport in southern Tamil Nadu.

Their samples will be sent for genome sequencing.

India has reported at least four cases of the BF.7 sub-variant that has wreaked havoc in China, in at least two states.

The country reported a handful of Covid cases in recent weeks, with the health ministry on Wednesday reporting 157 cases and one death in the previous 24 hours.

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.

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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.”

HIV on the rise in the region

A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.

New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.

Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.

Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.

Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.