The International Olympic Committee announced yesterday that Saudi Arabia will send two female athletes to London, meaning that the 2012 Summer Games will be the first in which every participating country will have a co-ed delegation.
The IOC said the Judo fighter Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani and the 800-metre runner Sarah Attar will join the Olympic team.
There was no official announcement of the female participation by the Kingdom by last night, and attempts to reach the Saudi Embassy in London and the National Olympic Committee in Riyadh for comment yesterday were not successful.
But the IOC President Jacques Rogge said in a statement that was “very positive news” that the two females would compete.
“We will be delighted to welcome these two athletes in London in a few weeks time,” he said.
The announcement comes after a flurry of reports and speculation about whether the Kingdom would send a female athlete, after its best-placed competitor, an equestrian, failed to qualify. Earlier this week, Saudi press reported that no other women had qualified, and a member of the Saudi National Olympic Committee confirmed that the country would send no women.
The IOC had repeatedly stressed that it hoped the Kingdom would take advantage of a waiver that allows athletes who have not met the qualifying standard to compete if they are the only representatives of their country.
Attar’s and Shahrkhani’s participation under that waiver was welcomed by sporting officials as well as rights activists, who had pushed for the Kingdom to send a co-ed team to London.
The president of the Judo Union of Asia, Obaid Al Anzi, said that his organisation knew of Shahrkhani’s participation before the official announcement and welcomed her taking part. “What’s important is that there is a lady from Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Nick Davies, the deputy general secretary of the International Athletics Associations Federation, said that his organisation, which governs track and field, "is delighted that one of the first women athletes from Saudi Arabia to compete in the Olympic Games will do so in the sport of athletics".
"A big inspiration for participating in the Olympic Games is being one of the first women for Saudi Arabia to be going," Attar, 17, said in an statement from her training base in San Diego, California. "It's such a huge honour and I hope that it can really make some big strides for women over there to get more involved in sport."
The Saudi sports minister and head of the Olympic committee, Prince Nawaf Al Faisal, was quoted by the local paper Al Jazirah on July 2 as saying that there were three conditions on any women participating: the consent of her male guardian, a guarantee that should could wear appropriate dress, and assurances that there would be no mixing of genders during the competition.
If Saudi Arabia sends its female athletes to London, it will be one of three countries to send its first women to the Summer Games. Qatar will field three female athletes and Brunei one. On Wednesday, Doha named one of the three women, the shooter Bahiya Al Hamad, as its flag bearer for the opening ceremonies.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by the Associated Press
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Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Cofe
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 80-100
Amount raised: $13m
Investors: KISP ventures, Cedar Mundi, Towell Holding International, Takamul Capital, Dividend Gate Capital, Nizar AlNusif Sons Holding, Arab Investment Company and Al Imtiaz Investment Group
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
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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