The Palestinian Authority expressed anger at Qatar’s delivery of millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip on Friday, accusing the official who delivered the funds of doing so like a “gangster”.
Qatar has agreed to send up to $90 million to Gaza over the next six months, with each installment worth $15m, to ease tensions between Hamas and Israel, who have been engaged in cross-border skirmishes for months.
Ahmed Majdalani, a senior Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official, slammed Doha for making the deal without the input of the umbrella group for Palestinians in the West Bank.
He criticised Qatar’s envoy to Gaza, Mohammed Al Emadi, who he said drove the money to Gaza through Israel like a “gangster” and “smuggled the money” into the besieged coastal territory.
“The PLO did not agree to the deal facilitating the money to Hamas that way,” Mr Majdalani, who is close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said.
He said that an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire deal had faltered because of Qatar’s actions.
While Israel sanctioned the deal, some senior ministers criticised the transfer of money into Gaza.
“This is capitulation to terrorism, and in effect Israel is buying short-term calm with money, while severely undermining long-term security,” Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, as quoted in Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Friday.
The cash deal appeared to be aimed at stopping border protests and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
But, despite the transfer, clashes continued on Friday. One Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire and 37 others wounded by gunshots, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Rami Qahman, 28, died after being shot east of Rafah in southern Gaza, the ministry added.
Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 and has since fought three years with Israel, the last being in the summer of 2014 when Israeli forces killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
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Read more:
Calmer protests along Gaza border after Hamas ceasefire gesture
Hamas agrees to end protests along Israel-Gaza border
Israeli army opens probe into killing of Gaza medic
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Since March 30, Gazans have protested Israel’s crippling siege on the territory at their shared border. Israel restricts Gaza’s land, sea and air space and imposes strict security measures at its people and goods crossings into the enclave.
The weekly rallies were met with Israeli fire. Snipers killed at least 221 Palestinians, many of them unarmed civilians. They also wounded and maimed hundreds more, some that doctors say were intentionally shot in the lower limbs to incapacitate them not temporarily, but in some cases for life.
Israel says the protesters were trying to breach the border and enter Israeli territory. It holds Hamas accountable for the protests and, as its rulers, any actions coming out of Gaza.
The tensions have escalated to the point where fears of a new outbreak of war have been expressed by senior international officials, such as Nikolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to the Middle East peace process.
Qatar has said it will pay money to those wounded in the border protests, as well as $100 each for 50,000 impoverished Gazan families.
In another Israeli-approved deal, Qatar has started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing planned outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years.
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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.”
CREW
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