MUSCAT // The old souqs of Oman's towns and villages have long been the centre of traditional life here, but traders and tour guides say that the decline of the old markets is beginning to affect the country's vital tourism industry.
At the souqs that do remain, the intricate fencing made from palm fronds has been replaced by ugly concrete walls, and plastic roofs covering the walkways.
The clatter of a silversmith's hammer, the noise of animals, the high-pitched voice of the auctioneer and the overpowering smells wafting from the spice stalls are but memories of the past. And so is the open-air "majlis" under the shade of date trees, where traders would gather for a coffee break, joined by regular customers.
"The heart and soul of the souq is gone," Mahmood al Farsi, 83, a retired silversmith in the Muttrah souq in Muscat, said. "There is hardly anything Omani these days in the souqs, apart from the halwa and the daggers." He said even the Omani shopkeepers have been replaced by merchants from South Asian, and most of the stalls sell imported textiles, clothes and shoes.
Veronica Cummins, 72, a British tourist who first visited Oman in 1973, said the ambience of a typical souq 37 years ago was straight from the Arabian Nights story books. Now, she said, that has disappeared.
"Then was a true romance for fans of Aladdin and Ali Baba in the Omani souqs those days. Long, flowing beards of old traders sitting in their shops, ladies in veils selling colourful woven mats, the smell of freshly brewed coffee given away with dates as a compliment to customers attracted visitors. Where has it gone and who to blame? This is what tourists come here for," Ms Cummins said.
Some may consider such romantic nostalgia condescending, but it also fuels a central part of the country's economy - tourism.
According to the tourism ministry, Oman has received just more than a million tourists last year, mainly from Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Japan. Tourist guides said that most of the visitors had the souqs as one of their priorities.
"About 90 per cent of European tourists insist on going to see a typical Omani souq. They have this picture in their minds of an old village square surrounded by old houses with the souq right in the middle," Suleiman al Harthy, a guide for the Muscat-based Desert Tours, said. "They are disappointed because such places have been replaced by concrete and red roof bricks, with expatriate shopkeepers serving customers."
From the early 1980s, the government started modernising the old souqs rather than renovating them said Malik Saleh, a historian based in Bahla in the Dakhliya region.
"I can understand that the old souqs were crumbling but the repairs did not retain the old architectural values. It took away the essence of a town where a souq was the centre of life, driving the local economy," Mr Saleh said.
Government officials disagreed with this assessment and said that the rise of the shopping malls took away business from a typical town's souq.
"When old traders retired, their children closed the shops in the souqs and moved them in to the malls. The empty shops had to be replaced by expatriates, and they started selling goods from their own countries," said Rashid Nabhan, retail supervisor of the general trading department in the commerce ministry.
Although Omani economists acknowledge that a part of the country's trading heritage is disappearing, they say the decline in old forms of commerce is inevitable as business people needed to keep pace with the development of a modern economy.
"I am not [being] arrogant to say that old people live in the past, [and] I can be forgiven for saying that as villages turn into towns and cities, businesses expand with them. It is a matter of survival, and businesses must adapt to modern ways to stay afloat," Talal al Rashdi, 41, a Muscat-based senior business consultant for Capital Trade Services, said.
Perhaps it is no small irony that some of the richest property developers were born in small towns and whose parents were themselves traders in the old souqs. But do they feel guilty to be involved in erasing their own history?
"In a way I do," Mohsin al Ansari, owner of Al-Ansari Property & Construction, said.
"The old days of trading kept together the communities to solve each others' problems. But it is the age of competition, and growth is part of business endurance. The shopping malls I help build create employment, which is not the case with the souq."
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Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
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
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
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.”
TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
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