Tehran // Iran and South Korea have decided to triple their annual trade volume to $18 billion (Dh66bn), president Hassan Rouhani announced on Monday after meeting his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye.
“The two sides decided to increase by three times the current trade volume of around $6 billion to $18 billion,” Mr Rouhani said in a joint televised press conference.
“We also spoke about tourism, direct flights between Seoul and Tehran, and Korean investment in Iranian tourism infrastructure, including building hotels,” he added.
Mr Rouhani also pushed for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the official IRNA news agency reported, saying that Iran seeks a world free of weapons of mass destruction, “especially nuclear” weapons.
Ms Park is the first South Korean president to visit Iran since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1962, and as Seoul seeks new markets to turn around a lengthy decline in export revenues.
Her three-day visit comes just months after a historic nuclear deal with world powers lifted sanctions crippling Iran’s economy in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme.
Ms Park said she has asked for Iran’s help in implementing UN Security Council resolutions calling for the nuclear disarmament of the Korean peninsula.
The remarks were aimed at North Korea, which has been hit with tough U.N. sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. North Korea has conducted four nuclear bomb tests and tested a long-range rocket earlier this year.
Ms Park, who was accompanied by several ministers and a 230-strong business delegation, will also meet Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The two countries have pledged to develop their relations in the energy sector.
“We will expand relations in energy projects and infrastructure ... and in oil, gas, railways and ports,” Ms Park said.
South Korea, the world’s fifth largest importer of crude oil, used to be one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil before the sanctions were imposed.
Tehran hopes this month to increase its oil exports to Seoul to 400,000 barrels per day from a current 100,000 bpd, according to oil minister Bijan Zanganeh.
The two governments signed 19 cooperation documents, and more memorandums of understanding were due to be signed by the private sector, Mr Rouhani said.
Talks also included discussions about the situation on the divided Korean peninsula amid fears that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct a fifth nuclear test.
“The security of the Korean peninsula and security of the Middle East are very important to us,” Mr Rouhani said.
“We seek peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and categorically oppose building any weapons of mass destruction.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
Dubai Bling season three
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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.”
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Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
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The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
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- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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United States
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China
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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