Business Extra

What it will take to rebuild a shattered Beirut

This week, Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner talk to Fadi Adra, a partner with Strategy&, on the impact assessment his team did to help route aid to those most in need in Beirut.

In this episode:
The Strategy& impact assessment (0m 51s)
What are the urgent needs in Beirut? (5m 05s)
What do the numbers tell us about progress? (8m 40s)
How did Covid affect Lebanon after the blast? (11m 21s)
How are surveys helping? (13m 00s)
NGO's and crisis consultation (15m 13s)
Private sectors and Lebanon's rise (16m 58s)
Commercial competition in space (20m 30s)
Headlines (22m 20s)

Read more on our website:
• Two planes loaded with 30 tonnes of aid leave Dubai for Beirut

• After Beirut blast, Tripoli hopes for a long-awaited economic boost

• Kuwait ready to rebuild Beirut port's shattered wheat silos

• US and China make progress on phase one trade deal

• Qantas plans to shed another 2,500 jobs with outsourcing of ground handling in Australia

• Aldar targets 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across assets by 2025

Aldar’s Greg Fewer is optimistic for signs of recovery by year-end

The chief financial and sustainability officer is optimistic for signs of recovery by year-end. Greg Fewer, Aldar’s chief financial and sustainability officer, joins host Kelsey Warner to talk about financial results from an unprecedented second quarter.

They discuss what Abu Dhabi’s biggest developer and asset manager did to manage losses at the peak of shutdown measures, and how it plans to sustain and grow in the months to come. Also in this episode, Mr Fewer shares his outlook for real estate, what sustainability means to a publicly listed company in 2020 and why Aldar is now accepting credit cards for rental payments.

In this episode:
How Aldar got through Q2 (0m 38s)
Flexibility for tenants (6m 32s)
How is Aldar moving with the times? (13m 39s)
Aldar and sustainability (19m 19s)
Headlines (22m 48s)

Read more on our website:
• Aldar Properties Q2 net profit jumps 2% on higher revenue

• Aldar to allow customers to pay rent by credit card

• ADQ joins forces with Adio to grow Abu Dhabi’s start-up ecosystem

• Oracle enters race to purchase TikTok’s US business

• BR Shetty resigns as director and co-chairman of Finablr

How Lebanon's economy went 'beyond the brink'

This week, Nassib Ghobril, head of economic research at Lebanon’s Byblos Bank, and Massoud Derhally, The National's business editor, join host Kelsey Warner to discuss Lebanon's precarious economic future.

In this episode:
Hassan Diab's resignation (0m 5s)
Nassib Ghobril on Lebanon's economic status (1m 13s)
Lebanon since the civil war (4m 17s)
IMF bailout for Lebanon (6m 39s)
The new government and the financial system (12m 31s)
What can we expect this year for Lebanon? (16m 09s)

Read more on our website:
• Beirut explosion to deepen Lebanon's economic contraction to 24%, IIF says

• Lebanon's Solidere stocks fluctuate as Beirut bourse resumes trading after explosion

• UN food chief: Beirut could run out of bread in under three weeks

Business Extra Special: ENEC’s Mohamed Al Hammadi on UAE’s nuclear energy ambitions

On this special edition of Business Extra, Kelsey Warner talks to Mohamed Al Hammadi, chief executive of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, about the Barakah nuclear power station and UAE’s nuclear energy ambitions.

In this episode:

On the moment Unit 1 powered on (0m 47s)

How nuclear energy fits into the UAE's Energy Strategy 2050 (3m 41s)

When Units 2, 3 and 4 will be ready (6m 23s)

Building a local team and community in Al Dhafra (8m 47s)

Lessons in leadership during Covid-19 (13m 39s)

Future of nuclear energy (16m 55s)

Read more on our website:
• Barakah Nuclear Power Station: Energy today for UAE's tomorrows

• UAE becomes first Arab nation to produce nuclear energy

• Barakah: Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed visits Arab world's first nuclear plant

Microsoft finds the 9-to-5 workday is fading away

New research from Microsoft found that the expectation of the 9 to 5 is starting to slip away amid the global shift to remote work.

The US tech company, which owns email service Outlook and event manager Calendar, as well as LinkedIn and search engine Bing, has one of the biggest data sets on who we are and what we do at work. It mined its trillions of data points based on emails, meetings, searches and posts to come up with its Work Trends Index.

To discuss the company's findings, host Kelsey Warner is joined by Naim Yazbeck, a director for Microsoft UAE. They talk about who is being most affected by the WFH experiment, a surprising uptick in a specific emotion - empathy - and how to avoid burnout.

In this episode:
What have we learned from working from home? (0m 34s)
Which generation finds WFH the most challenging? (8m 52s)
Headlines (16m 34s)

Read more on our website:
• Eight in 10 people expect flexible work from home policies post Covid-19, Microsoft survey finds

• How the pandemic is reshaping work-life balance

• Eight in 10 people in UAE will work remotely after Covid-19, says report

• Adnoc's logistics subsidiary eyes smart growth opportunities following shipping JV, CEO says

• Virgin Galactic delays Richard Branson flight to space and plans new share sale

• HSBC profit plunges as loan loss provisions soar on Covid-19

IEA’s Fatih Birol on the opportunities for Iraq's economy

This week, The National's Editor-in-Chief, Mina Al-Oraibi, talks to Mustafa Alrawi about her interview with the International Energy Agency's executive director Dr Fatih Birol regarding efforts to diversify and reform Iraq's economy.

In this episode:
Mina on Iraq's future (0m 30s)
Dr Fatih Birol about the investment environment in Iraq (4m 20s)
Gas flaring and Iraq's government (5m 35s)
Headlines (14m 25s)

Read more on our website:
• Energy and legal framework reforms will usher stability into Iraq, IEA chief says

• Gold hits record high as haven demand rises and dollar slips

• DP World expands with 60% stake in South Korea's Unico amid pandemic-induced volume drop

• 'Groundswell of interest' among ESG investors in disability rights

Sovereign wealth funds hunt for opportunity amid Covid-19 crisis

It seems that despite the market volatility caused by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic that many sovereign wealth funds had learned the lesson of the last financial crisis and were nimble enough and cash-heavy enough to seize the opportunities out there.

On this week's episode, Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner talk to Zainab Kufaishi, head of Middle East and Africa at Invesco.

In this episode:
Intro (0m 08s)
Zainab Kufaishi on Invesco's annual global sovereign asset management study (1m 11s)
How are sovereign funds investing now? (3m 42s)
What is a good investment opportunity? (11m 04s)
Headlines (19m 54s)

Read more on our website:
• Middle East sovereign funds go bargain hunting as pandemic hits asset values

• Siemens Energy to invest more in renewables, CEO says

• Mubadala's aerospace unit seeks opportunities in health technology

• Global giants Microsoft, Nike and Unilever announce carbon-neutral group

Economic stimulus in Dubai to get business back to normal

This week, hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner discuss a third wave of economic stimulus for Dubai as signs of a rebound in commercial activity emerge and the emirate pushes to return business to normal as soon as possible.  

In a new book, the World Economic Forum's founder Klaus Schwab asks if there can even be a return to normal as the pandemic reveals a collective desire for change.

Haider Ali Khan, chief executive of property portal Bayut, joins to talk about the company's future plans.

In this episode:
Dubai's new economic stimulus (0m 40s)
Covid-19: The great reset (7m 01s)
Bayut x Dubizzle merger (12m 13s)

Read more on our website:
• Dubai government boosts economic stimulus to Dh6.3bn

• Coronavirus: world 'must reset or risk violent shocks', says Davos founder

• Tie-up of Bayut parent company and OLX testament to Dubai’s resilience

• Google to invest $10bn in India to accelerate digital economy

• Emirates to slash up to 9,000 jobs due to Covid-19 but airline better off than others

• Neom moves forward with second batch of payments to property owners

Google’s Lino Cattaruzzi on how ‘online became a lifeline’

For Google, it’s what you search for, what you watch on YouTube, the directions you prompt in Google Maps, that make it one of the biggest advertising juggernauts on Earth. Selling advertising spots across these channels made up 82% of Google parent company Alphabet’s first quarter revenue this year, $33.8 billion. 

While advertisers are expected to have spent less in Q2 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, analysts say the world jumped five years ahead in tech adoption in just 8 weeks as we moved to remote working and learning. That’s good news for Google. In the words of Lino Cattaruzzi, Google’s regional director in the Middle East and Africa, “online became a lifeline”.

On this week's edition of Business Extra, Kelsey Warner and Mustafa Alrawi talk to Lino about everything Google.

In this episode:
Intro (0m 06s)
Google's role in a recovery (1m 08s)
The relationship between business and user data insights (9m 21s)
What is it like working remotely at Google? (17m 43s)

Iata’s Muhammad Albakri on Middle East airlines and how we will risk losing them

How will we fly again? That is the question as the UAE and other countries in the Middle East grapple with loosening Covid-19 related travel restrictions. Airlines have been in survival mode these past few months. Now they must take to the skies again…

This week, Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner talk to Muhammad Albakri, VP Africa & Middle East at the International Air Transport Association, about the future of flying.

In this episode:
Muhammad Albakri on the future of air travel (0m 43s)
Will air travel be affordable again? (12m 26s)
Headlines (23m 23s)

Read more on our website:
• Global airlines body outlines alternatives to quarantine

• Global long-haul air travel unlikely to recover to pre-crisis levels before 2023

• Iata's interactive travel map shows which countries are open and where flights are operating

• Chesapeake files for bankruptcy as collapse in energy prices bites

• A merged NCB-Samba bank would be Saudi Arabia's biggest lender 'by some way', says EFG Hermes

• Mark Zuckerberg's wealth plunges by $7bn as companies boycott Facebook ads

• Here is the growing list of companies boycotting Facebook