Dubai, UAE: During their third round of the CSR Label awarding ceremony, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry honoured three Dubai-based companies for their contribution to adopt and lead best corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices in their organisations.

du, QBG and the Nail Spa are the three companies which were bestowed with the Dubai Chamber CSR Label during a special presentation ceremony held at the Emirates Towers hotel in Dubai recently. This recognition standard, initiated by Dubai Chamber last May, provides a good platform for public recognition of corporate social responsibility efforts and contributions by companies across different economic sectors.

Dr. Belaid Rettab, Senior Director, Economic Research and Sustainable Business Development Sector, Dubai Chamber, presented the CSR Label certificates to the receiving companies. He said that the Dubai Chamber CSR Label is a journey to learn, assess, monitor and improve individual CSR strategies and practices by businesses. It is a direct recognition and reward programme for good CSR practices as it helps companies to communicate their progress with customers and other stakeholders.

Dr. Rettab further stressed that the CSR Label provides an opportunity for the participating companies to identify best responsible practices and to discover their strengths and weaknesses while dealing with the effects of their commercial activities on the business environment and the society. It also helps them apply responsible business practices in their company’s internal operations including performance appraisal and overall development of the organisation.

Said Dr. Rettab, “Since its launch last May, the CSR Label, which is the first of its kind programme in the Middle East, has generated a lot of interest across a cross-section of organisations irrespective of their type or size and helped them to adopt international best practices with regard to CSR and sustainability. The programme encouraged them to apply responsible business practices to their day-to-day working environment, besides establishing a reference within the Dubai business community as well as contributing to the society at large.”

Hala Badri, Executive Vice President, Brand and Communications, du, said: “Our corporate mission is to add ‘life to life,’ and this recognistion by Dubai Chamber for our efforts towards our corporate social responsibility is an honour. Receiving the CSR Label is representative of our dedication to improving the communities that we serve, be it in terms of economy, ecology or sociality.”

She added: “We would like to thank Dubai Chamber for presenting us with this honour, and we extend our congratulations to other organisations for receiving this proud recognition alongside us.”

Mr. Deepak Sharma, CEO, QBG said: ”Dubai Chamber has taken a commendable step in introducing CSR Label for organisations who demonstrate CSR activities as an essential part of its business operations, For QBG, CSR is not a one-off philanthropic activity but an internal part of our business strategy. Plans are carefully identified then executed capitalising on our strengths and considering where we can make valuable contributions on our customers, employees, society and environment.

“The feedback from Dubai Chamber highlighted the fact that CSR is a strategic investment and if we can improve on our gaps we surely are on our way towards re-modeling ourselves as one of the few companies having morale for CSR. We sincerely feel that every company should sign up for the CSR Label to re-invent themselves as this will be very evident by the end of the assessment as to where one stands,” added Mr Sharma.

Said Shabana Karim, Managing Director, Nail Spa, “For us, the CSR Label is a recognition of being a good corporate citizen. It reflects our commitment to all our stakeholders, clients, employees, communities, suppliers and government officials. In a way, this also guides and drives us as to how we move forward as a company. The payback is definitely huge; for us as a company and as a contributor for the larger environment and society.”

Previous companies who have been awarded the CSR Label are Emirates Gas, Intercoil International LLC, Mashreq bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Standard Chartered, 3W Networks and FedEx.

Developed by Dubai Chamber Centre for Responsible Business, the Dubai Chamber CSR Label is part of a learning programme which provides access to supporting products such as toolkits, networking seminars and training workshops. The Centre offers a variety of educational, professional training and consulting services that are designed to build individual companies’ capacity to implement broad CSR programmes including business ethics, sustainability reporting and corporate governance.

According to NCB Capital, Saudi Arabia’s leading wealth manager, the kingdom remains vulnerable to increases in food prices due to its high dependence on imports. In its new report analyzing the impact of higher global food prices on the Saudi Arabian food sector, NCB Capital believes that the inability to fully pass on higher costs to consumers will exert pressure on the margins of food companies.

Global food prices increased sharply in 2007/08 as well as over the past 12 months due to various structural reasons including growing demand, increased use of crops for bio-fuels and falling efficiency gains in terms of land use.  “Although we expect food prices to fall in 2012, we believe over the longer term, inflation will be the norm,” said Farouk Miah, Acting Head of Equity Research. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) believes that the prices of soft commodities over the coming decade will on average be 15-30% higher than over the past decade.

The report highlights that Saudi Arabia depends significantly on imports to meet its food requirements with food imports set to more than double to SR132bn by 2020 from SR63bn in 2010. The reliance on imports is set to remain given that domestic production is restricted due to the scarcity of water and unfavorable weather conditions. Between the 1970s and 1990s, the Saudi government policy was for self-sufficiency in key crops. However, this has been abandoned with the current aim to work alongside countries which have fertile land but lack the financial investment required to benefit from this.

“Any rise in global food prices remains a key concern for Saudi Arabian food companies due to their exposure and reliance on this as a key raw material,” added Mr. Miah. “The recent rise in global food prices has seen the profitability of Almarai and Savola, the two largest listed players in the Saudi food sector, severely impacted.” Margins of both companies declined in 2008 and 2011e by an average of 200bps YoY due to higher raw material costs. COGS account for a major share of revenues for Almarai (61%) and Savola (84%).

On the whole, Saudi food players have historically been able to pass on cost inflation to end consumers. However, with overall Saudi inflation remaining relatively high, this has become increasingly difficult. In July 2011, Almarai increased prices on its 2 liter milk bottle from SR7 to SR8, however a week later it was forced to abandon this due to government intervention. “If this is a sign of a change in government policy, this could make it harder for local food companies to mitigate food inflation by passing it on to end consumers, thus hurting their profit margins. Companies will have to be innovative and efficient in their use of raw materials, as well as cut costs elsewhere in order to protect margins,” Mr. Miah stated.

NCB Capital expects inflation exposure for Saudi companies to be high. The increase in global food prices remains a key concern for Almarai. The company’s direct material cost accounts for approximately 42% of revenues (68% of COGS); ingredients account for 42% of this, followed by feed-related cost (33%) and packaging expenses (25%). Sustaining margins is a concern due to the recent increase in feedstock and commodity costs. In addition, restrictions on increasing prices of end products prevent Almarai from passing on the burden to consumers. Hence, Almarai has been witnessing a decline in profit margins despite a CAGR of 26.4% in its top line over 2005–10.

“Government subsidies of SR212mn during 2008–10 have provided Almarai some respite,” explained Mr. Miah. “However, rising food prices necessitate other measures to control costs and sustain margins. Accordingly, Almarai has been continuously focusing on improving efficiency and expanding into higher margin segments such as bakery, juice and poultry.”

Recently, Almarai announced plans to invest SR4bn in an integrated poultry business. With high growth rates and increasing market shares, the poultry and bakery segments are set to play an increasingly important role at Almarai. By 2013, contribution of the poultry and bakery segments to total sales is expected to increase to 9.3% and 13.2% respectively, from 3.2% and 11.8% in 2010. On the other hand, share of the fresh dairy segment to total sales is likely to decline to 39.9% from 45.7% in 2010.

The report highlighted that higher input costs could hurt Almarai’s revenues from the juice segment as most raw materials (fruit pulp) are imported. Almarai has been undertaking various measures to control costs through innovative packaging techniques (involving efficient use of raw materials) and aggressive marketing initiatives. This would indirectly pass on the increase in costs to consumers.

The report also highlighted the impact of food inflation on Savola. According to NCB Capital, exposure to rising global food prices is severe for Savola. COGS account for approximately 84% of revenues with Savola depending heavily on imports to meet its raw material requirements. Thus, although in the coming 12 months Savola should benefit from lower food prices, over the long-run, any increase in the prices of raw materials such as edible oil and sugar will have a negative impact on margins.

The FAO sugar index has averaged 378 YTD in 2011 against 302 in 2010 (up 24%). Similarly the average for the FAO oils index YTD is up 31% against the average for 2010. The company’s retail segment witnessed margin pressure due to higher buying costs associated with food products. All of this combined has led to margin pressure in the past 12-18 months.

In addition, the difference in the prices of raw and refined sugar exerts pressure on the company’s sugar segment. Savola uses raw sugar as the input and turns this into refined sugar. Thus, any shrinkage in the premium of refined sugar over raw sugar could dent margins.

NCB Capital believes that the restrictions on increasing prices of end products (to pass on input cost hikes to consumers) poses a challenge for Savola in the manufacturing/wholesale and retail segments. In addition, Savola’s 28% stake in Almarai exerts further pressure on its margins as it exposes it to the dairy segment which is also experiencing margin pressure due to increased prices of feedstock.

According to the report, the Saudi government faces the challenge of limiting inflation amid a spike in global food prices. “Food prices account for a 26% weight in the consumer price index used to measure inflation in the Kingdom, thus any increase in food prices substantially impacts overall inflation in Saudi Arabia. To counter this challenge, the government has undertaken different measures,” explained Mr. Miah.

The Saudi government has been actively tracking retail prices of key food products such as barley, milk, wheat, sugar and flour. This is done by continuous inspections and imposition of penalties on retailers that increase prices without a valid reason. Also, in May 2011, the government penalized 10 barley importers for pricing the subsidized commodity higher than the profit margin specified by the Council of Ministers. Finally, the Saudi government has been providing subsidies to food companies to mitigate higher raw material costs. Such subsidies provide some respite, but are inadequate to completely absorb higher raw material prices. This exerts pressure on margins of food companies, the report highlighted.

“Some of the mentioned measures prevent companies from fully passing on increased raw material costs to consumers. The Saudi government restricted food inflation to 5.4% in August 2011 despite a 26% rise (according to the FAO food price index) in global food prices,” concluded Mr. Miah.

Release Date: 12th December 2011

Dubai Exports, an agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED), organised a B2B meetings for UAE companies to develop business relationships and trade cooperation with companies from Saudi Arabia and India.

The event included 50 companies, 40 from UAE and 10 from Saudi Arabia and India, from the construction, petrochemical and services sectors. The program included one-to-one meetings allowing Saudi Arabian and Indian companies to meet with a minimum of five UAE companies during the event.

“Among our objectives at Dubai Exports is to enhance the competitiveness of Dubai and the UAE by promoting exports from the Emirates. The B2B meeting is one of the effective tools that provide direct platforms to encourage our local companies in exploring trade opportunities with other companies in different key markets,” said Engineer Saed Al Awadi, Chief Executive Officer, Dubai Exports.

“Our trade representation offices in Saudi Arabia and India assist in enabling UAE companies to grow regionally and globally. Attendees from the event were also presented with the export services we currently offer and how we can aid them to meet potential trade partners in the region,” he added.  

Dubai Exports, as a regional forerunner in facilitating exporters, prides itself in creating enabling environment for exports and enhancing the competitiveness of Dubai as a preferred trading partner. During the event, Dubai Exports team worked on studying current business opportunities and needs in various sectors in Saudi Arabia and India, as well as highlighting the expertise and capabilities of UAE companies to provide these needs.

Currently, Dubai Exports’ representation offices in Saudi Arabia (OTO-KSA) and India (OTO-India) offer expert advice and support to members seeking to wider market opportunities in these countries. Aside from inward and outward missions such as B2B meetings, among the services provided by OTO-KSA and OTO-India are quick market assessments to enable UAE companies to collect adequate information about the status of different commodities in these markets including identifying and overcoming issues related to exporting from Dubai to Saudi Arabia and India.

Saad Ghanem, Marketing Manager, Mohammed Bawazir for Trading in Saudi Arabia said; “Since our establishment in 1987, we are working in the import of commodities of food, consumer products, as well as distribution operations in all parts of the Saudi market. To cover the company’s large business segments, we are constantly looking for partners who can meet the needs of our customers. Through the matchmaking event, we are able to meet companies in the UAE that caters to the same field and we hope to work and exchange expertise with them.”

Samer El-Kari, Exports and Purchasing Manager at Al Fares Food Industries Ltd in Saudi Arabia added that they were keen to look for companies from the Gulf region to cooperate with them as it saves time and cost in terms of trading. “The UAE companies have high quality products at a low cost, which can further bolster our businesses. This event contributed in increasing our knowledge of the industrial capabilities of several UAE companies including the actual support that the government provides which can result in expanding our operations and re-exporting our products from the UAE to other countries in the region,” Al Kari said.

Meanwhile, Bhavin Shah, Director of Agarwal Group in India said that; “The B2B meeting was a perfect opportunity that allowed us to communicate directly with a number of manufacturers and specialists working in the petrochemical and infrastructure sectors in the UAE. This can help us in developing our businesses especially with the support provided by the government for the trade and export sector. We’ve met a number of companies that we can have direct cooperation to establish trade ties and we hope to close couple of contracts in the coming months.”

Domestic routes outside the Middle East increase the costs considerably to the end-user, says international charter expert

Dubai, UAE, 27th November, 2011: Private Jet Charter, one of the world’s largest independent private jet charter brokers and consultants, says the costs of private jet flights from the GCC to multi-destinations in Europe and North America could be 50 percent lower if a global private jet company is used. This is because a regional company does not have presence in other parts of the world, thus adding hidden costs to the customer.
 
Private Jet Charter founder and Chief Executive Hugh Courtenay said that big corporates and high flying customers cannot afford to waste time and pay double the fees because their local private jet company has to send them a jet from the Middle East to transport them from two domestic destinations inside Europe, for instance. This cost is passed on to the customer.”

Courtenay emphasised: “Private jet business highly depends on high net worth individuals and affluent families, but that doesn’t mean that these people should pay double the amount or more, if they move internationally through a local private jet company.”

Air charter business is expensive because of jet rental fees and the crew, but it is big on convenience and time savings and that is why royal families, CEOs, and the region’s affluent segment use it.

Courtenay added: “If a customer on Paris-Dubai route wants to proceed from Paris to Rome and then to Mexico or Las Vegas and then to Beirut, he will pay triple the bill if he uses a local private jet company because these companies don’t have presence nor partners in these destinations which requires them to either keep the private jet with the customer for a longer period, or despatch a jet from their home base, with the customer paying for the back and forth costs.”

Specific benefits that the Private Jet Charter offers its customers include 24 hour service round the year, multilingual and expert staff, competitive free quotations and advice, unique CATS aircraft sourcing technology, flight watch monitoring on all executive air charter flights. This involves keeping the PA or travel organiser informed of every stage of the journey, from limousine pick-up to take-off, progress of the flight and landing.

Other benefits of Private Jet Charter include state-of-the-art private jets, experienced pilots and cabin crew, the use of private business and VIP terminals, check-in only 15 minutes before departure, fast but secure immigration procedures, take off from an airport of the customer’s choice at their specified time, ‘meet and greet’ facilities, as well as comprehensive airport information and limousine ground transportation, when required.

Private Jet Charter offers quality charter flights to its customers. The company looks at convenience and quality for its customers especially for those who have regular meetings and needs the flights on a daily basis to move from a region to another on a business trip.

Courtenay concluded: “The problem of the private jet business is that players in the industry are not all up to the level in terms of knowledge, global accessibility, outreach, counselling capabilities and adherence to quality. We meet dissatisfied customers from other companies every day who regretted using the wrong private jet company and have lost a lot of money and time because of it, realising that their decision to use our services instead meant that they would receive the best service available.”

Dubai, UAE, 16th November, 2011: Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower), the largest district cooling services provider in the Middle East, has said district cooling companies should follow the trend of merger and acquisitions popular among UAE banks, in order to benefit from consolidation and economies of scale.
 
Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower said the strategic step will lead to cost savings, maximisation of branch network performance as well as realise profit efficiency in the long run for banks, while for the industry as a whole it means enhancing UAE’s position as an ideal financial hub in the region.

Linking this merger to the District Cooling (DC) industry in the UAE and the Gulf, Bin Shafar called for similar mergers and acquisitions among DC companies.

Bin Shafar added: “Most of the countries in the world have experienced mergers and acquisitions in their banking sector where significant banks around the world are being involved in merger and acquisition activities for the benefits of economies of scale. The same merger principle can be applied to DC companies, because the higher the production the lower is the cost.”

Key players in the district cooling industry in the UAE and the Gulf have succeeded in building a world-class district cooling infrastructure. The demand has risen rapidly in the last couple of years which makes it really profitable for key players to consolidate their activity to serve customers with greater efficiency and lower costs by combining their resources.

On a related matter, Bin Shafar has urged regional and local banks to enhance their funding to district cooling industry which is considered one of the safest industries in terms of risks and return on investment (ROI).
He said that if banks show reluctance to invest in the DC sector they are losing a precious opportunity to invest in a promising and safe utility industry.

Bin Shafar anticipated more banks in the Gulf to go for mergers and acquisitions to achieve significant growth in their operations and minimize their expenses.

Empower has been growing steadily in the UAE as part of its plans to position itself as a major player in the global front.

STC Group CEO congratulated the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and HRH the Crown Prince on the success of this year’s Hajj season by all means including the support provided by most of the Government sectors.  STC Group CEO announced the success of the Group’s plan to manage the telecommunications traffic of incoming and outgoing to Makkah and the Holy Sites and countries around the world.  The CEO also announced the success of coordination between the Group’s various operations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Kuwait, and Bahrain where pilgrims from these countries received various promotional offers that met their needs during the season.  This year’s Hajj also witnessed a high demand on various telecommunications services and achieved high traffic flow of telecommunications during the peak hours of Hajj such as day one in Arafat and the first day of Eid at the various Holy Sites and Makkah.

Following his tour of the Company’s various locations in Mina during Eid, Eng Al Daweesh confirmed that there is a visible increase of telecommunications traffic over the years before and at different rates.  He mentioned that the usage of data, data transfer, and usage of mobile and fixed internet networks increased five-fold over last year.  Many guests and many of those providing the service also took a keen interest in fiber options, 3G advanced services in addition to uniquely launching, for the first time, the 4G service in the Holy Sites.

Al Daweesh added on the occasion of the success of the Group’s Hajj plan, “STC puts all of its sectors into service in order to achieve high synergies and success rate during the season.  These plans are harmonious with and complement the Government’s various sectors and other agencies working for the comfort of the guests.”  He also mentioned, “Serving Hajji’s is an honor that we carry and are proud of, availing all of our human and technical resources.   We also make use of the Group’s technical capabilities and experience to cope with the Government’s mega projects in Makkah and Mina such as the continuous expansion of the Haram, Train Project, and others providing the upgraded projects with highly advanced telecommunications services.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 19 September 2011: It’s no secret that today’s unprecedented data growth, datacentre consolidation and server virtualisation is wreaking havoc with conventional approaches to backup and recovery. The rapidly intensifying demand for storage is putting a tight squeeze on enterprise resources as backup and recovery becomes increasingly complex; cutting into staff time and budgets whilst also slowing operations.

Conventional backup and recovery approaches are no longer robust enough to meet current data and information management challenges. Modern Data Protection as a new strategy is essential.as it provides unparalleled advantages taking an innovative and holistic approach to data and information management. IT managers in the Middle East need to understand this.

“The exponential growth in the volume of digital information is resulting in almost unbridled growth in demand for storage capacity,” said principal analyst Amy Larsen DeCarlo in a January 2011 Current Analysis report. “Nor is there any sign of a slowdown anytime in the near future, with some industry estimates that individual storage volumes could continue to grow 90 to 100 percent year over year for the foreseeable future.”

Greg White, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at CommVault Systems says that as data rapidly becomes one of the enterprise’s most valuable assets, determining how to analyse, replicate, protect, archive, search and recover it whenever necessary is quickly becoming more complicated.  The key to keeping today’s data chaos under control is to reduce risk of loss, minimise operational complexity, and ultimately lower the cost of data management by developing a more complete understanding of your data.

In addition to the ever-intensifying data growth being experienced there is a pressure to control and manage data in huge volumes which leads to burgeoning virtual server deployments, applications with enormous data requirements, heightened business demand to reduce downtime, greater regulatory and governance requirements, and emerging “infrastructure as a service” models such as cloud storage. All of these factors impact your resources and make current data management circumstances even more critical concerns.

Legacy approaches to data management have fallen behind in the areas of protection and recovery of these massive volumes, or addressed them in a piecemeal fashion.

The Trouble with Legacy Backup

Legacy, point-level approaches that stream backups directly from production environments are fast losing their effectiveness because they can’t solve the problems of massive data overload. Enormous volumes of data lead to long backup windows, which often forces manual or complex snapshot and scripting methodologies to turn into extremely complicated and time-consuming recovery operations.

Even more frustrating, legacy backup doesn’t globally address the proliferation of redundant data leading to excessive demands on network, storage and management resources. Legacy replication, if you can afford it, is complex, resource–intensive or tied to specific hardware. There is no granularity into the data you are protecting and no integration with the applications creating that data.  In turn this limits your ability to restore and use protected data as well as it increasing the time it takes to accomplish these tasks. Finally, legacy backup solutions are often dependent on a collection of loosely integrated tools and products that require scripting and individual management consoles, which is another administrative nightmare.

Employing a Modern Data Protection strategy to meet the challenges of data management in this new era means venturing beyond the models of the past and introducing a single, modern platform that integrates application intelligence with hardware snapshots, indexing, de-duplication and replication to efficiently capture, move, retain, find and recover data from any storage tier.

Making it even more appealing, this powerful, innovative approach is based on a single user interface and common code base that lets you improve recovery times, reduce costs, improve operations and consolidate budget line items. The ultimate benefit: Modern Data Protection frees you to focus your critical time and resources on your organisation’s broader business goals, by simplifying the data and information management process so you can “do more with less” and ensure that you’re also poised to meet future storage demands.

The process starts with application awareness—in-depth knowledge of applications and file systems to provide granularity into the data you are protecting, and to enable consistent, rapid copying of that data. Next, snapshot technology forms the core of the new data protection process. You must be able to create instant, application-aware recovery copies, even from heterogeneous hardware snapshots. And you need to be able to safeguard your critical information as you bridge the gap from physical to virtual server environments; rapidly deploy, grow and scale virtual servers; and implement critical applications within those environments. Modern snapshot integration improves recovery time and executes upon stringent Data SLAs, while dramatically reducing backup windows by offloading production resources for backup operations.

Once you have snapshot copies of your data, embedded, global de-duplication eliminates redundant data to increase network efficiency and reduce storage infrastructure costs. This happens at the source and across the enterprise, without the need for rehydration during restores or off site, to maximise efficiency. Source-side de-duplication can reduce up to 90% of the data moved over the network and as much as 50% of the time required to perform backups. With the right software, a single, virtual disk target can retain de-duplicated backup and archive copies for efficient retention and fast restores.

Next, Modern Data Protection provides the flexibility to maintain copies of your data on different storage tiers to meet different retention and recovery needs, ensure appropriate levels of protection over time and enhance efficiency overall. It enables you to seamlessly and automatically store some snapshots near the original data for quick, granular restore; move older backups off to less costly storage tiers and preserve copies as long as you are required to keep them. Integrated replication in data management software enables this flexibility by efficiently moving full or incremental block changes from hardware snapshot copies.  It also significantly reduces the backup window while offloading server and network resources. These replicated copies can be contained in one content-aware, indexed store for both protection and archiving, which allows you to use existing or commodity disk - or even cloud storage services - to lower the total cost of ownership for retained backup and archive data, and to increase IT and business agility.

Automation, role-based security and reporting are also core tenets that factor into your Modern Data Protection strategy. To reduce storage and storage management costs, for instance, almost all manual activities should be eliminated through policy-based approaches and centralised administration that automates the movement of backup and archive data to the most cost-effective storage locations. Security is also paramount, so a modern data solution must provide not only the means with which to secure data but also the flexibility to let administrators selectively define which data different types of users are authorised to see and manipulate.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how good your backup process is if you can’t recover data quickly and efficiently. The last critical element in a Modern Data Protection solution is therefore recovery management.

A centralised control that enables granular recovery of files, emails or documents from any storage tier improves recovery time and recovery point objectives.  With enterprises in jeopardy of losing irreplaceable business data, and personnel and budgets already stretched, traditional backup and recovery is broken. A Modern Data Protection approach offers unrivaled advantages over legacy data management systems and ensures that your organisation is future-proofed.

Release Date: 3rd August 2011

Dubai Exports, an agency of the Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED), Government of Dubai, having recently completed a successful trade mission to Sao Paolo and Rio De Janiero in Brazil is expecting more UAE companies to increase trade and their presence in Brazil through the close cooperation forged during the mission. The Mission is expected to see growth of the UAE’s exports to Brazil in the coming years particularly in the sectors of finance, construction, and retail.

In partnership with Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC), and Apex Brasil, more than 15 UAE companies participated in the trade mission. This second business mission aimed to further encourage trade partnerships between the private companies in the Emirates and Brazil. 

Average annual (non-oil) export growth, over the last four years to Brazil, despite the economic crisis was evaluated at 166%, with the total (non-oil) exports in 2010 of nearly AED365 million (USD100 Million). Among the top products being exported by the UAE to Brazil are machinery and parts; plastics & plastics articles; aluminium and its articles; iron & steel & products thereof; building materials, and perfumes among others.

“The Brazilian economy is poised for further growth in the coming years. In the medium-term, both private and public consumption is expected to grow fast. The FIFA World Cup and the Olympics will offer excellent opportunities for exporters and investors in Brazil over the next few years,” said Engineer Saed Al Awadi, Chief Executive Officer, Dubai Exports.

“Organising such trade mission ensures that our members are made aware of various business opportunities in outside the UAE. Missions and exhibitions, being few of the key export promotion tools we provide to our members, the trade mission allowed them to gain the suitable trade knowledge in expanding their presence in the Brazilian market,” Al Awadi added.

Mr. Sidnet Costa, UAE General Manager for APEX Brazil quoted figures provided by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade of Brazil: “The volume of UAE’s exports to Brazil increased 62% from 2009 to 2010 and that generated an increase of 182% in the value of the exports. These numbers prove the effectiveness of the initiatives of Dubai Exports to consolidate new markets for the UAE products.”

During the Sao Paolo trade mission, the UAE delegates also met with Sao Paulo Mayor, Gilberto Kassab and Salim Schahin, The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce President. The team also met with different local and government organisations such as the Investe-Sao Paulo, the State Agency for Investment Development in Sao Paulo; Sao Paulo State Industries Federation, and the Nossa Caixa Desenvolvimento, an institution created to finance investments in Sao Paulo.

Other activities included company and market site visits, B2B and high level meetings with local government agencies in Brazil. The ABCC led by its CEO Dr. Michel Alaby, discussed some of the main facts and highlights of trading in Brazil while Dr. Luiz Fraxino from Conselvan, Fraxino & Associates Law Firm, a leading firm in Brazil, strongly specialised in public procurement area, tackled the legal aspects of Brazil on Investment and Trade. 

ABCC CEO Dr. Alaby stressed that: “This mission opens more possibilities for trade and investment between Brazil and UAE, through Dubai’s Free Zones and logistical solutions that reach some 1.5 billion potential customers around the Arabian Gulf and surrounding nations, like Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, China, India, and Iraq.”

Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, the team met with the Pedro Spadale, Undersecretary of International Relations, Government of Rio De Janeiro; representatives of the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro (FIRJAN); Rio Negócios City Hall; Trade Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FECOMERCIO), and the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). All the government, semi-government and private agencies in Brazil that were met during the mission provided excellent information and cooperation and all looked forward to a closer and sustained cooperation with the UAE’s businesses to further economic ties between the two countries.

Eurocom Worldwide Survey shows that more firms are involved in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn than blogging

July 9, 2011

Nidal AbouZaki

The latest international survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide, the global PR network, in association with Orient Planet PR and Marketing Communications,  has revealed that 38 per cent of technology companies check out potential employees’ profiles on social media sites such as Facebook.

“Job seekers may be happy for their LinkedIn profile to be viewed by a prospective employer but are they comfortable with what’s posted on their Facebook profile?” commented Nidal Abou Zaki, Managing Director, Orient Planet. “They may be comfortable that their own privacy settings are locked down tight but what about the career suitability and accessibility of photos or other personal information posted on friends’ sites?” 

The Eurocom Worldwide survey found that 38 per cent of technology firms examine social media profiles to determine potential employees’ suitability for a job. “Social media is a great way to network and build career opportunities but it is becoming more difficult to differentiate between your professional and personal persona on the web,” added Abou Zaki.

The survey of over 660 senior level executives in technology companies, which was conducted during January and February 2011, also highlights corporate usage of social media.
Only just over a third (36 per cent) of technology firms have any formal process in place, other than a Google alert, for listening to what is said about their company on the web.

“The first phase of implementing a social media campaign is to listen to and monitor what is being said about your company and its service or product online,” commented Mads Christensen, network director, Eurocom Worldwide. “The majority of firms are either failing to do this or are not doing it in a very rigorous manner.”

There appears to have been no growth in corporate blogging over the last two years with the proportion of technology companies surveyed having a blog remaining flat at around one third. The main reason cited for corporate blogging is to improve interaction with public/customers, followed by raising profile/thought leadership and boosting search engine optimisation (SEO).

The Eurocom Worldwide survey found that the main barriers to corporate blogging are that “it is too time consuming”, cited by 33 per cent, followed by “don’t see the value of it” (29 per cent) and “never thought about it” (18 per cent).

“Such is the value of corporate blogging from a search perspective alone that it is a little surprising that only a third of technology firms do it,” commented Abou Zaki. “However, blogging does require a significant time commitment so companies are better not to do it at all than do it badly or infrequently.”

Despite a mixed reaction to blogging, half (51 per cent) of firms surveyed have a Facebook page, 46 per cent have a corporate Twitter account, 43 per cent are on LinkedIn and just over a third (36 per cent) of companies have a YouTube presence. Of the total, 38 per cent expect to increase their spend on Social Media over the next 12 months.   

In terms of activity, just over a quarter (26 per cent) of respondents’ companies Tweet daily and just over one in five (21 per cent) update their Facebook page each day.
The Eurocom Worldwide Technology Market Survey 2011 was conducted by the network and its member agencies during January and February 2011, and surveyed 664 senior level executives in technology based businesses across more than 30 countries worldwide.

George Ayache, General Manager, IFP Qatar, organizer of Project Qatar 2011

Eighth edition of leading exhibition to provide region with strategic platform to explore key opportunities in construction industry 

April 25, 2011
 
Companies in the Middle East region’s construction segment are looking towards playing a major role in Qatar’s current construction boom, according to the IFP Group, organisers of Project Qatar, the leading construction show for Qatar and the GCC. IFP Group made the observation today (April 25, 2011) during a press conference at the W Hotel, Doha, to announce the launch of the eighth edition of Project Qatar that will be held from May 2 to May 5, 2011 at the Doha Exhibition Centre.

Project Qatar 2011, which is being held under the patronage of Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H.E. Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabor Al Thani, aims to provide a strategic platform for the construction industry’s key players to discuss current trends and issues; showcase products and services and reinforce business ties between buyers and sellers. More than 1,700 exhibitors from across 47 countries will be participating in the high-impact three day event, which will also include networking opportunities that have been designed to foster the formation of new partnerships and drive in more strategic opportunities to help bolster Qatar’s already flourishing construction industry. According to the organisers, the major growth in the country’s construction sector is attributed to two leading factors; the announcement of Qatar as the host for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the able leadership of His Highness Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, who has exerted major efforts in the move to usher in progress and development.

“All eyes are on Qatar as it sets out its preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with infrastructure projects amounting to over USD 100 billion over the next 12 years. The amount of preparations needed will involve the development and creation of key infrastructure that can meet the demand of hosting one of the world’s most followed sporting events. This scale of construction projects are bound to attract the attention of construction companies from across the region wanting to take part in project opportunities created by the favorable market conditions. Project Qatar 2011 sets out to give the region a prime venue for industry players to meet, create and reinforce business ties,” said George Ayache, General Manager, IFP Qatar.

Michele Gebreal, Project Manager, Project Qatar 2011, said, “Project Qatar continues to play a big part in advancing the role of key products and services in the region’s construction industry. Our aim is to become a strategic venue and platform for companies, government agencies and individuals to talk about the latest issues in the industry; facilitate the formation and consolidation of partnerships that can lead to the creation of important business and investment opportunities and act as a launching venue for new products and services. We look forward to seeing increased participation in this year’s edition and we believe that the event will help drive in key investment opportunities for the country’s growing construction segment.”

The IFP Group has revealed that exhibition space for the coming event has already been sold out, with the UAE taking the biggest section. Also being held simultaneously with Project Qatar are Heavy Max 2011, the international trade exhibition for heavy machinery; an exclusive dedicated green pavilion offering eco-solutions and ‘The Qatar Sustainability Conference 2011’. Sponsors for Project Qatar 2011 include Orwood (Diamond Sponsor), NAFFCO (Gold Sponsor), BBK Holdings (Silver Sponsor) and ABUISSA Holdings.