Participants at a microfinance conference in Dubai this week. Sanabel Microfinance has blossomed in recent years, helping fill a funding need for businesses too tiny and risky for traditional banks. Curiously perhaps, while microfinance has been a big hit across parts of Asia and South America, its start in the Middle East and North Africa hasn’t been as auspicious. Microfinance institutions have existed in the Middle East […]
A landmark ruling by the court system in Dubai’s financial free zone suggests the emirate is starting to influence the way international business disputes are resolved in the Middle East, partly taking over that role from London and New York. Last month a court in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) found Switzerland’s Bank Sarasin had mis-sold $200 million of investment products to Kuwait’s prominent Khorafi family, […]
The Rawabi project displayed at Cityscape Global in Dubai. Rory Jones for The Wall Street Journal New settlements in the West Bank are often heatedly discussed in Dubai. But at the emirate’s showcase real estate event Cityscape Global, it was Palestinian, not Jewish building that was on the tips of tongues. Rawabi, a controversial housing project billed as Palestine’s first planned city, was this week being sold […]
Edinburgh in the sunshine Photo: AP In bright sunshine this past week, the cobbled pedestrian streets of Edinburgh and the bustling byways in and around the Royal Mile have been thronged with students getting to know Scotland’s historic capital. Students like me, eager to start this new chapter in our lives while enjoying the cheap alcohol and easy socialising that comes with Fresher’s Week. However, behind the carnival […]
Last year, coworking spaces became all the rage in Dubai as entrepreneurs sought a place to get together and build nascent startups. Now, Google Inc. has also got in on the act. The tech giant has teamed up with the cofounders of online shopping website Namshi to create a “Google for Entrepreneurs” Tech Hub in Dubai. The space will open in 2015 and be run by AstroLabs, […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), AstroLabs and Google have team up to launch a technology hub that will promote start-ups. Based in the DMCC free zone, the hub is expected to open early next year, catering to technology entrepreneurs from around the world looking to gain access to high-growth emerging markets, including the Emirates. AstroLabs, which is a DMCC member, trains Middle East and […]
Saudi Arabia’s second-largest telecom operator Mobily said Monday it has established a joint venture with Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play Tech Center to make investments in seed-stage startups in the Middle East. Mobily The partnership, the second of its kind in the region, will also help bring international startups to the region and comes just a few days after Mobily announced it has a launched a venture […]
NEW DELHI: The government is working on developing a bankruptcy framework to offer easier exit routes to sick companies while helping revive those with viable options, said Kalraj Mishra, the new minister for micro small & medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Another issue the ministry is dealing with is availability of land for industrial units. It is asking states to create land pools by listing out all unused land available with them.
“Entrepreneur bankruptcy framework will be developed to enable easy exit of sick units,” Mishra told ET. “It has been a major demand of the MSME sector for a very long time. The details will be worked out soon.”
SMEs employ close to 40 per cen
NEW DELHI: Gautam Adani plans to acquire power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 mw, but he will avoid aggressive bids to ensure good returns, a source close to the tycoon said a day after Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group outbid him to buy 1,800 mw hydro power capacity from Jaypee Group.
Gautam Adani is directly involved in evaluating offers and negotiations, something he left to company executives in the past, the source said. The company is in talks with several power sector players, including GMR, Lanco, Indiabulls, Avantha Power and Athena, the source said.
Another person in the Adani Group said there are many sellers in the market, offering projects with a combined capacity of nearly 50,000 mw.
 
The authority of the free zone Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSOA) announced it plans to set up Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Centre (DTEC) in order to boost entrepreneurs in the technology field. DTEC is planned to be launched in the first quarter of 2015. DSO is set to encompass over 3,600 square meters that will provide existing and emerging high-tech entrepreneurs and start ups with a work environment that […]
The idea for Sudamed came to doctor-turned-entrepreneur Mazin Khalil two years ago while standing in a hospital reception in Khartoum. He watched a father walk up to the reception with a newborn baby and ask for a particular doctor, only to be told that the doctor was not working until six hours later. Sudamed website Mr. Khalil, 25, saw a simple solution. He set out to create […]
The MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition, one of the biggest startup events in the Middle East, will announce its winner on Thursday evening at an event in Cairo. Here’s the five startups that caught the Wall Street Journal’s eye from the shortlisted semi-finalists. Elwafeyat.com: The concept of Cairo-based Elwafeyat.com is dead easy to understand. The website is an online platform to honor deceased family members and […]
Some 10 days before the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011, a small startup accelerator was born with grand ambitions to serve the region’s entrepreneurs. Those ambitions had to be put on hold for six months with the ensuing political turmoil in the country. But now, in less than three years, Cairo’s Flat6Labs has established a platform, and most notably a brand, across the Middle […]
|By TAP Staff| Ooredoo has announced a new collaboration with the world-renowned MIT Media Lab, in order to drive cutting-edge ICT innovation and research. Since 1985, the MIT Media Lab has pioneered unconventional research in the ICT sector to radically improve people’s daily lives. Ooredoo joins the MIT Media Lab as a Consortium Lab Member. Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo, said: “ICT is rapidly converging, and […]
When French wine and cognac bottle maker Saverglass decided to expand three years ago, it chose a relatively remote, less affluent location in the United Arab Emirates for its plant rather than the business hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company sited its 75 million euro ($105 million) factory, which produces some 400,000 bottles a day, in the desert emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, an hour’s […]
With a youthful, well-educated population, strong relationships with both neighbours and world powers, and a strategic location on the Gulf, major oil producer Kuwait should be as dynamic a hub for the region as Dubai or Doha. But while others in the Gulf have powered ahead, attracting foreign investment and developing infrastructure, Kuwait has stagnated, frustrating the people of a country once seen as a Middle East […]
|By Pranay Gupta| When I look out of the windows of my 25th-floor apartment in Dubai, I see the Persian Gulf shimmering a few blocks away. Cruise ships are parked at the dockyard, and in the blue waters beyond a steady stream of oil-laden tankers head out to quench the world’s thirst for black gold. Closer to me are other skyscrapers, vast shopping centers, and crowded convention […]
Research from PwC predicts that global assets under management (AuM) will rise to around $101.7 trillion by 2020, from a 2012 total of $63.9 trillion. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 6%. The report, Asset Management 2020: A brave new world, also finds that assets under management in the SAAAME (South America, Asia, Africa, Middle East) economies are set to grow faster than […]
The United States on Friday congratulated the United Arab Emirates on landing the 2020 World Expo trade exhibition — the first time that a Middle Eastern nation will host the event. The UAE on Thursday won its bid to host the six-month event in Dubai, beating out Russia, Brazil and Turkey. “This is a significant first as the UAE serves not only as the region’s business hub, […]
When the British government said last month it would issue its first Islamic bond, the implications went far beyond the debt market: it was a signal that London will not back down in an escalating tussle among cities for Islamic financial business. London has long been the default center for international firms to issue sharia-compliant bonds, part of a fast-growing Islamic finance sector that will be worth […]
A call for the United Arab Emirates to consider allowing expatriates to apply for citizenship has sparked a debate about national identity in the Gulf Arab state, where foreigners outnumber the local population by more than five to one. Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, a member of one of the UAE’s ruling families, is one of the federation’s pre-eminent commentators and also one of the most well-known Twitter users […]
