Follow the latest news on the earthquake in Turkey and Syria
The UK would lift sanctions on Syria if they were seen to be holding back the delivery of aid to earthquake victims, a Foreign Office minister has said.
Andrew Mitchell suggested Britain could follow the lead of the US in pausing the punitive measures aimed at Bashar Al Assad’s regime after the colossal disaster.
The development minister’s comments came ahead of the UN aid chief Martin Griffiths’s visit to Syria on Monday. He said the 7.8 earthquake in Turkey and Syria has caused the “worst event in 100 years in this region” and said the UN was failing the victims.
During an interview on the BBC on Sunday, Mr Mitchell touched on the possibility of sanctions relaxation, but insisted “at the moment we are able to get what we want through and that's the key thing”.
He said the UK’s Conservative government will “do everything we can to ensure aid gets through to the suffering”.
Asked if the UK would roll back sanctions, he said: “Specifically here, were sanctions to hold us back in any way, we would seek to have them lifted.”
A girl, 10, on Sunday became the latest survivor of the quake to be pulled from the rubble. Her rescue, after an astonishing six days underground, happened amid fears the death toll could hit 50,000.
As of Sunday morning, the number of people known to have died as a result of the disaster had passed 28,000.
Regions in Syria that were hit by the quake included government-held territory and rebel-controlled areas.
MPs in the British Parliament last week condemned Mr Al Assad for his regime’s “heinous” bombing of a rebel-held town shortly after the disaster.
Marea, a town 35km north of Aleppo, was shelled by government forces, lawmakers said, as locals were scrambling to rescue people from the rubble.
Mr Griffiths is due to visit Aleppo and Damascus on Monday. He told Sky News the needs of people in north-western Syria, where the quake struck, are “huge”.
Speaking from the Turkey-Syria border where lorries were being loaded with UN aid, he said “we’re ramping up the operation because the needs in north-western Syria are huge even before this earthquake let alone now.”
He said he is also seeking authorisation from the UN Security Council to open up more crossing points on the boundary “to maximise the volume of supplies we get through to people” in Syria.
“It’s an open and shut case on humanitarian terms why we need those extra crossing points now to save lives and to provide some sort of assistance to the people as they come into the post-rescue phase,” he added.
Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and chairman of the defence select committee in the House of Commons, has backed his call for more crossing points between Turkey and Syria.
Speaking to Sky News, he said he wanted to see a UN Security Council resolution that calls for “full access to allow more border crossings to open, more aid agencies to be able to get into northern Syria, particularly the city of Aleppo.”
He said after the disaster, the UK government should allocate the same amount of aid to affected communities in Syria as those in Turkey.
Emirati rescuers search for survivors in Syria — in pictures
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.”
