Arun Panchariya-Vogue Café launches in Dubai

A coterie of top models and erm, Ivorian footballer Didier Drogba attended the launch of publishing house Conde Nast's new café in Dubai last night.

With images from the Vogue archives providing the prefect backdrop, models Karolina Kurkova, Bianca Balti and Petra Nemcova - fresh from their red carpet exertions at the Cannes Film Festival - were served canapés of miniature dishes, such as lobster rolls and shrimp spring rolls, all washed down with inventive mocktails.

The second Vogue Café (the first was opened in Moscow, Russia) is situated within the Level Shoe District in The Dubai Mall. The luxurious shopping destination is home to carefully curated selection of shoes by every big brand, from Berluti to Valentino.
Second from left: Petra Němcová, Karolína Kurková, Didier Drogba, Bianca Balti and Ariadne Artiles.
"The Middle East is a very exciting market for us and one that we are proud to be a part of," commented Stuart Nielsen, Condé Nast International's director of restaurants.
Nielsen added: "We will soon be announcing further expansion plans within the UAE, and along with our partners, Inspired Brands, expanding the Condé Nast Restaurants portfolio in the region."

A Tatler Club is already open in Moscow, a GQ bar opened in Istanbul in February.

Arun Panchariya-Dubai Registered Lamborghinis Seized In London

Two Lamborghini supercars with Dubai number plates have been seized in London this month after their owners failed to have them insured.

Last Wednesday a silver Lamborghini Aventador was swopped on by police as it parked outside Harrods, the luxury retail store owned by Qatar and popular with wealthy Arabs.

For the Metropolitan Police, who patrol England’s capital city, impounding high-performance vehicles from the Gulf has become a regular activity in recent years as the number of Middle East tourists has risen.

Earlier this summer the London constabulary even used a Lamborghini for promotional purposes to warn wealthy drivers of the risks of not insuring their vehicles.

A metallic purple Aventador with orange trim was placed outside the police’s headquarters, New Scotland Yard, after its driver did not have a licence or insurance.

With rocketing summer temperatures in the Gulf, escaping to Europe’s big cities with the promise of cooler temperatures and greener landscapes has become a popular retreat for many in the Middle East.

In London last year, Saudi visitors were up by 22 per cent year-on-year while visitors from the UAE were up 10 per cent.

With the rise of wealthy visitors though comes a rise in traffic offences, although London’s authorities often struggle to collect fines due.

In previous years a Dubai-registered Rolls Royce racked up 18 tickets for parking offences amounting to £2,000 (Dhs11,500) while a Lamborghini Murcielago, also from Dubai, was slapped with 24 tickets.

Arun Panchariya-Four Leadership Lessons From Dubai’s Ruling Family

As the emirate works hard on settling accumulated debt while simultaneously announcing new grandiose plans, Dubai is an economic wonder and a continuous source of excitement.

Be visionary

Dubai demonstrates that a vision can become almost self-fulfilling and make the near-impossible happen. The Al Maktoum’s visions for Dubai are a world apart from the vision and mission statements that are formulated half-heartedly by so many executive teams around the world, that are basically fluffy extrapolations of what their companies are more or less already doing.

The current ruler’s father and former emir, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum, was naturally met with plenty of scepticism when he started transforming the small town of Dubai into an international hub for trade, transport and tourism. He laid the groundwork for today’s amazing infrastructure with foreign financing even before his emirate’s oil resources were discovered, which was relatively late and in moderate quantities.

Sheikh Rashid envisioned early on that Dubai’s oil wealth would be temporary and that the emirate would fall behind and back into past hardship, unless serious actions were taken. His philosophy, which his sons and other family members are applying to this very day, is that extensive supply can create impressive demand. Dubai has been built on visions, not on foreign experts’ estimates of immediate demand.

Communicate

In my work with executives in the Middle East and elsewhere, I often emphasise that what is not communicated does not exist for people around them. Clear, consistent and continuous communication has an immense power, and Dubai is an excellent example of this.

Within about 10 years, the emirate has gone from being a place few people have heard of to one that most informed people around the world have some perception of and where the international social elite visits regularly.

This road has been paved by small attention-grabbing events such as the tennis match between Andre Agassi and Roger Federer on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel and the deployment by Dubai Police of a Ferrari and a Lamborghini as part of their fleet, as well as by other international iconic monuments like Palm Jumeirah and Burj Khalifa.

The art of communication is very close to the heart of today’s ruler, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. Not only is he a popular and respected poet and the author of the bestselling book My Vision, he also now has more than two million people following his daily reflections on life via Twitter. He is regularly present at formal events and often appears as if from nowhere to inspect his emirate personally and speak with its residents and visitors.

Nurture business acumen

No executive can claim any achievement by just following the classical textbook on leadership, as his or her actual results are what ultimately count. In this regard, it is striking that several of the Gulf’s most well run companies are closely associated with the Al Maktoum family. Among these are DP World, du, Dubal, Emirates Airlines, Emaar and Jumeirah Group.

Underneath Dubai’s extravagant surface lie several highly efficient economic engines. New businesses have been started and critical decisions made with a meticulously mercantile mindset. Customers should be satisfied and money should be made. Experienced management teams have been hired, given good degrees of freedom but required to generate profit from early on, and meet increasing expectations from their owners as they progress.

Dubai has had a sound business model for much of its ongoing commercial activities despite its debt issue, which became evident in late 2009. The emirate now has about $64 billion of debt maturing over the next three years. The situation was triggered by highly optimistic asset valuations combined with excessive availability of cheap loans and followed by the international credit crunch.

Places such as Hong Kong, Miami and Singapore, where demand and supply of real estate likewise have skyrocketed in certain periods, have had to deal with their own lows due to sudden large imbalances after enjoying times when almost everything was growing.

Arun panchariya-Abu Dhabi Doubles Development Fund Capital To Dhs16bn

The capital of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has been doubled to Dhs16 billion from Dhs8 billion, according to a new ruling issued by Abu Dhabi’s ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The increased capital will be fully subscribed by the Abu Dhabi government, reported official news agency WAM.

The new ruling amends some provisions of law no. (10) of 1999, concerning the establishment of ADFD, stated the report.

Under the new law, the activities of the fund have also been expanded to include the entire UAE, along with maintaining ADFD’s “fundamental role in achieving the state policy to promote the economic development in developing countries.”

ADFD, which is chaired by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was established in 1971 as a vehicle to manage the UAE’s humanitarian affairs.

Total loans provided by the fund since its inception until the end of 2012 amounted to Dhs14.90 billion, covering 226 projects. The total value of grants provided by the Abu Dhabi government to projects managed by the fund reached Dhs13.46 billion.

Last year, ADFD also signed an MoU with the Asian Development Bank to increase cooperation between the two regions and develop a framework for co-financing development projects in Asia.

The fund owns stakes in 15 companies across 10 countries, and its total investments stood at Dhs954.04 million at the end of 2012. 

Arun Panchariya-Kuwaitis Head To The Polls For Sixth Time Since 2006

Kuwaitis voted for the sixth time in seven years on Saturday in a parliamentary election boycotted by the main Islamist and populist opposition, which may help liberals and independents win seats.

Turnout was expected to be low in summer temperatures hitting 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and as Kuwaitis become fed up with voting in short-lived parliaments.

The opposition boycott may produce a parliament more willing to cooperate with the government on economic development than some of its predecessors in a country where political infighting has held up investment.

“Voting is a national duty,” said Mohsen Dashti, a 40-year-old doctor who was casting his vote in a coastal district south of the capital. “We need reconciliation between the parliament and the government as well as a focus on development.”

The oil-producing U.S. ally has the most open political system in the Gulf Arab region. While it has witnessed sizeable street protests in the past two years over local issues, its generous welfare system and relative tolerance of dissent have helped to shield it from Arab Spring-style unrest.

But parliaments have been dissolved time and again, usually for getting too bold in challenging government ministers.

The snap election was triggered by a ruling from the top court in June, which said the process leading up to the last one in December was legally flawed.

Almost constant political upheaval and entrenched bureaucracy have held up major parts of a KD30 billion ($105-billion) development plan announced in 2010 to build a refinery, airport, hospitals, housing and highways.

Kuwaitis say they face housing shortages, clogged roads and an old-fashioned airport despite living in one of the world’s richest countries per capita. They point out that other Gulf states, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have pushed ahead with bold modernisation projects.

“It is very difficult and it is very depressing for us to have so many elections in such a short time,” said lecturer Wasmeyah al-Abbad after casting her ballot in an upmarket district close to Kuwait City.

Abbad, in her 50s, said the issues important to her were women’s rights, inequality and the dominance of powerful families in politics and the economy: “Men get houses, but women don’t, we don’t get to choose our careers, and some names are dominating positions.”

Campaign themes have included corruption, loan relief and concern over a $4 billion aid package to Egypt after the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

On Saturday Kuwaitis on Twitter vented frustration at the aid promise, saying the money could be better spent at home.

Kuwait and other Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were glad to see the back of Mursi because they are fearful of Islamist influence in their own conservative, dynastically ruled countries.

“WASTE OF TIME”

Polls were open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (0500-1700 GMT) and results are expected early on Sunday.

The mainly Islamist and populist opposition is boycotting in protest against a new voting system announced last October, which cut the number of votes per citizen to one from four, and which it says would prevent it forming a majority in parliament.

In a country where political parties are banned, the old system helped opposition politicians to form alliances by offering reciprocal backing from their supporters.

“The election will lead to a sham parliament that the government will control,” said Mohammad al-Dallal, a former Islamist MP who joined the boycott. He said many Kuwaitis believed the parliament would not last long and be invalidated by a court ruling or by the emir, like previous assemblies.

“Electing such parliaments is a waste of time,” he said.

The government says the voting changes brought Kuwait into line with other countries and will ensure stability.

Saturday’s vote will elect a 50-member assembly which can pass legislation and interrogate government ministers. But the 84-year-old emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has the final say in state matters and can dissolve parliament.

The emir courted groups unhappy about the new voting system and encouraged several powerful tribes to endorse the election. That led to splits in the opposition, with liberals deciding to run as well as Salafi Islamists, who support the austere form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.

Arun Panchariya- Dubai, UAE residents have no gender preference for babies

More than half of the 760 Nabd Al Arab survey respondents say they have no preference when it comes to the gender of their baby.
The results are a reflection of the growing opportunities for women in the country, says Dr Souad Al Oraimi, a professor of gender and development at UAE University.

"It means that now parents consider the two genders equal," Dr Al Oraimi says. "Women are now capable of taking care of themselves. They have access to education, they can work and fulfil their potential, so they are equally valued by society."

Twenty-six per cent of respondents show a preference for a baby boy and 16 per cent for a baby girl. The other 58 per cent give no preference.
"These are really impressive results," says Rima Sabban, an assistant sociology professor at Zayed University.

"It shows that the woman's active role is being recognised. Society is getting modernised and women can now generate money to help the family.
"At the end of the day they're making a difference, so there's no reason why someone would choose a boy over a girl."

But men's and women's preferences were very different.
Thirty per cent of men say they would rather have a baby boy compared with 21 per cent of women, while only 12 per cent of men show preference for a girl, against 24 per cent of women.

But Dr Oraimi says that the numbers should be approached with caution.
"I still see a preference for boys in our society," she says. "This is part of the traditional thinking and the only thing that can change this is time.
"It all depends on how quickly society develops and the UAE is moving rapidly."

A 2011 Gallup survey of more than 1,000 respondents in the US showed 40 per cent of respondents would prefer a boy to a girl if they were only to have one child.

Arun Panchariya-Worries over rise in eating disorders in the UAE

Three-quarters of young Emiratis suffer with body issues, and one in five of those need clinical intervention, a study suggests.

The number of sufferers from anorexia and bulimia has increased in recent years, mainly among teenage girls, said Sana Karim, head of student counselling at the Ministry of Education.
While ministry psychologists visit schools to deal with behavioural issues, including eating disorders, she said it was vital for parents and teachers to look for the signs.
“There are certain symptoms you can see as to whether a child is well or not,” she said. “Early on, parents notice children’s habits and teachers see them in class. Some students may seem sleepy in class or may struggle to focus.”
Dr Justin Thomas, from Zayed University, and Sabrina Tahboub-Schoult, from the American University of Sharjah, found the alarming results during a study of 361 undergraduates – 284 women and 77 men.
Their paper has just been accepted by the journal Eating Disorders.
The researchers pinned much of problem on rapid social change, which has affected men and women almost equally. That was a surprise; the team had expected male participants to be less affected.
“Social change brings uncertainty, and eating disorders appear to increase in prevalence as societies move through major sociocultural transitions,” said Dr Thomas.