BEIRUT // A commercial hub and home to 2.5 million people, Syria's second city Aleppo has become a new front in the country's 16-month uprising, after being largely excluded from the violence.
For decades, the city has been known as an industrial manufacturing base, particularly for textiles, thanks to rich cotton resources.
As a stop on the Silk Route, the city sits in a region with a strong artisan tradition, and also once served as the capital of a vast province stretching across south-east Anatolia and the plains of the Syrian north.
The Baathist regime, in power since 1963, supressed an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood between 1979 and 1982 when many of its businessmen backed the rebellion. But it has been able to profit from a free-trade agreement signed with Turkey in 2005, although some small local businesses in the city found themselves unable to compete with their Turkish counterparts.
Residents, known for their business sense, developed the local food and pharmaceutical industries, and focused on producing the local products for which they are reknowned, including soap.
"Aleppo was calm because it is an industrial and commercial town that found favour with the regime after 10 years of punishment for its support for the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1980s," said the geographer Fabrice Balanche, the head of the Mediterranean and Middle East Studies and Research Group in Paris
"The security apparatus has been very powerful since then. The rebels come from the countryside but Aleppo's residents are staying home," added Mr Balanche.
The lure of the big city as well as the search for jobs has pushed large numbers of residents of the rural region around Aleppo to move to the town, which covers about 120 square kilometres.
About 45 per cent of the city is made up of informal neighbourhoods, whose residents are mostly Sunnis and Kurds.
Overall, the majority of its residents are Sunnis, about 65 per cent of them Sunni Arabs, and 20 per cent Kurds, who are also Sunni Muslims.
Christians represent about 10 per cent of the population of the city, around half of them Armenians, with the remainder from the Syrian, Greek Orthodox and Maronite churches.
Members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad and his family belong, make up about five per cent of the population. Unlike in Damascus and the southern city of Homs, the community is not concentrated in any particular districts.
With the exception of Hamdaniyeh, home to numerous government employees, among them large numbers of Alawites, the community is dispersed throughout the city's districts, particularly its Christian quarters.
Mr Balanche said the neighbourhoods under rebel control include the northeastern Tareq Al Bab, south-eastern Salaheddin and unnamed areas where most of the population comes from Aleppo province. The rebels do not yet control the city's central districts or those in the west, which are home to the city's elite, Christian residents, and others originally from Aleppo rather than from its outskirts.
The city's more upscale districts include Shahba, Halab Al Jadida (New Aleppo) and the city centre. Aleppo's historic Old City quarter was added to the Unesco World Heritage Site list in 1986.
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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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Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
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- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
- SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income.
- Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
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