ABU DHABI // Government officials hope new procedures will soon take most of the headache out of applying for mandatory national IDs, cutting the process down from hours to 10 minutes or less.
In tandem with an increase in facilities that can process applications, the new process will link resident visa and ID data electronically through the appropriate government departments, officials said yesterday.
Two hundred new registration devices will be deployed to mobile centres that serve labourers, and children younger than 15 need not apply for the cards in person.
McKee Cajes, 28, a creative designer who has been in Abu Dhabi for three years, said she had tried to get her card last year, but was turned away, and has avoided going back. She was sceptical of the Government's pledge to make the process easier, but said that "if it's true, I would go".
Dr Ali al Khouri, deputy head of the higher committee at Emirates Identity Authority (Eida), said it will open a centre in Abu Dhabi that will be bigger than the one in Al Mushrif.
The existing 25 medical centres, where residents are tested before receiving their residency visas, will also serve as registration centres.
Combining the residency visa renewal process with the ID cards "will help the authority to finish registering all residents in the country within three years", Dr al Khouri said.
"There will also be co-ordination with schools and universities to activate their role in students' registration," he said.
Application forms are available online at www.emiratesid.ae. Beginning in April, they will also be available at various printing offices, where applicants can provide documents, fill out forms, pay fees and get appointments to visit a registration centre for the final steps.
Everyone in the country should be registered by the end of the year, officials said. The goal is to create a civil registry of Emiratis and residents in the country. More procedures will be introduced next month.
Mayssoun Frieje, who arrived in Abu Dhabi five months ago, said she had found the previous application process easy and had spent just a few minutes waiting at the registration centre to obtain her ID card.
The card, she observed, "will be potentially useful."
Others saw no reason for the system's hassle and expense.
Gemma Lachica, who arrived in Abu Dhabi nine years ago from the Philippines, said she had printed and filled in the forms available online, but after handing them in, she said, "it took a whole week for them to get me the card".
At Dh100 per year, she said, the cost of a card was too high. Worse, she said, she had not yet found a use for it.
* The National, with additional reporting by Matt Chung and Robert Peterson
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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
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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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Investments: Grants/private funding
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Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
