Business Extra

With a new Iran nuclear deal on the horizon and the possible lifting of US sanctions, up to 1.5 million barrels per day of oil exports could return to the market. However, the country's energy sector is in dire need of both cash and international equipment.

The National's columnist Robin Mills discusses what is still an uncertain outlook for Iran's oil and gas industry with host Mustafa Alrawi.

In this episode:

The future of the Iranian oil industry (0m 55s)

The dynamics of the market (5m 41s)

The energy transition and Iran (10m 32s)

Iran's new leadership role (14m 23s)

Read more on our website:

• Future of Iran's oil industry remains uncertain as it heads to the polls

• Blinken: Iran deal breaches could reduce nuclear breakout time to ‘weeks

• US oil hits $70 per barrel as commodities gain amid rebounding global growth

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More than 13,000 businesses in the Middle East have expressed interest in using Stripe since the payments platform announced its regional debut and office in Dubai last month.

“There's just so much momentum in the UAE and the surrounding area,” said Matt Henderson, the business lead at Stripe for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, regions where the company is rapidly expanding.

Stripe offers products that allow merchants to accept digital payments and a range of business banking services. Clients include Amazon, Shopify, Deliveroo, Microsoft and Apple.

 

Mr Henderson joined The National’s Business Extra podcast this week to talk about the market for digital payments.

In this episode:

Infrastructure for the digital economy (0m 37s)

Stripe in the Middle East (2m 44s)

The evolution of the digital payment landscape (7m 40s)

Cybersecurity and digital payments (18m 22s)

Read more on our website:

• Global digital payments company Stripe enters Middle East after funding round values company at $95bn

• Would you tip for social media content? Why people are willing to reward creators with more than just likes

• ADGM unveils Digital Marketplace to test feasibility of future products

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The future of travel in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic will be characterised by higher air fares, cheaper hotel rooms and fewer but longer trips, according to industry expert Sadiq Gillani.

Speaking to the Business Extra podcast’s Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner, Mr Gillani, a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, outlined what we are likely to experience when travelling as the recovery picks up pace. 

There will be an imbalance of capacity, for example, when comparing airline seats with hotel rooms and cruise cabins. This is because most carriers have partially grounded their fleet but few hotels have shut down permanently, he said. Even as demand comes back at the end of this year and into next year, it will take a long time for airlines to build back up to where they were before the pandemic, in terms of capacity.

In this episode:

The future of travel (0m 36s)

The trends showing the future of travel (1m 58s)

Emerging new archetypes (9m 31s)

Revenge travel (16m 10s)

The winners out of the crisis (22m 30s)

Read more on our website:

• Can summer travel revive aviation's fortunes?

• Airline CEOs likely to face cash flow challenges amid signs of travel recovery, Iata boss says

• Dubai Airports chief projects return to pre-Covid passenger volumes by 2024

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The chief executives of the world’s largest companies are showing a “strong appetite” for in-person conferences taking place in the final three months of the year. Justin B Smith, chief executive of Bloomberg Media, which organises hundreds of events a year, speaking exclusively to The National and the Business Extra podcast, said that the company has "identified a very, very strong appetite for engaging in person again” following a period of mostly online-only conferences amid the Covid-19 pandemic. He also discusses key topics on the agenda for Bloomberg's New Economy Forum in Singapore in November, including China-US relations and climate change.

Business Extra co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner unpack what in-person events could look like post-pandemic, drawing from Mr Smith's insights.

In this episode:

Justin B Smith on demand for live events (1m 15s)

The New Economy Forum's task at hand (5m 53s)

New Economy Forum's view on the China-US relations (11m 27s)

Tech companies and global regulations (13m 13s)

Will in-person events come back? (15m 27s)

Read more on our website:

• Bloomberg's New Economy Forum to be held in Singapore

• ATM 2021: Top travel and tourism players convene in Dubai to map future of industry

• Expo 2020 Dubai is a 'beacon of hope' as thousands of deals to bring the world to the UAE are signed

• World Economic Forum cancels 2021 annual meeting

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Heading into summer, airline bookings in April and May were "pretty positive" for domestic travel while bookings for international journeys remained "exceptionally weak" as travel restrictions continued in many countries due to new cases of the Covid-19 virus, according to the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

To determine if summer will provide a lift, a patchwork of issues are in play: a global vaccination effort rallying sentiment in some parts of the world to a devastating spike in Covid-19 cases throughout India and parts of southeast Asia. Meanwhile, can pandemic-era pushes for immunity passports, digitalisation and carbon offsets prove to have staying power?

This week, The National's aviation correspondent Deena Kamel joins co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner to discuss the outlook for travel's peak season.

In this episode:

Can aviation be revived? (2m 26s)

Shifting trends and behaviour changes (5m 46s)

Emirates capacity increase (13m 14s)

Four factors in the future of travel (15m 50s)

The enduring changes (18m 30s)

Read more

The long-promised new era of technology is taking shape, from the quantum computing race between nations, to the battle over fair competition being fought in a US court between Apple and Epic Games.

 

While the future remains uncertain, developments in recent days and months reveal a path that will change the way consumers and companies interact online and who will be the guardians of our digital lives.

 

This week, host Mustafa Alrawi, assistant editor-in-chief, and co-host Kelsey Warner, Future editor, explain the state of play and the themes to watch: the incoming deep tech wave, the UAE’s investment in cryptographic “sovereignty” and Apple’s new data privacy rules.

In this episode:

The technological shift and awareness of data (0m 40s)

The deep tech wave (2m 06s)

The rise of the hacker (6m 13s)

Apple's stand on privacy (9m 57s)

Apple v Epic Games (13m 44s)

Read more on our website:

• Meet the Abu Dhabi cryptographer keeping your personal data safe

• Apple's 'walled garden' faces Epic attack in app store trial

• What do Apple's new iPhone privacy changes mean for users and businesses?

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Bitcoin mining now uses enough electricity annually to power a country equivalent in size to the UAE. Can warnings over cryptocurrencies' carbon footprint challenge - and help us reimagine - how we utilise energy resources? And amid a rising tide of digital assets, what can be learnt from Bitcoin's shift to renewable energy?

Host Mustafa Alrawi, assistant editor-in-chief, and co-host Kelsey Warner, future editor, discuss these issues in this week's episode.

In this episode:

Bitcoin's energy consumption (0m 55s)

What is Bitcoin mining? (2m 24s)

Why is there a market for Bitcoin? (6m 45s)

Bitcoin's role in an energy transition (8m 30s)

Read more on our website:

• Bitcoin's annual energy consumption now exceeds that of the UAE

• Bitcoin breaches $50,000 threshold in downfall

• Tesla’s first-quarter profit surges to $438m on record deliveries

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Archegos Capital Management's spectacular failure over a couple of days in March has cost Wall Street's biggest banks billions of dollars. So far, the losses are being chalked up to one bad apple: the fund’s founder, Bill Hwang.

Mr Hwang’s record-breaking loss of an estimated $20 billion fortune in two days is a cautionary tale. But this is not only about how far any one investor may fall during a historic bull market. The cascade of consequences was limited to a few large firms. But what about next time?

Host Mustafa Alrawi and co-host Kelsey Warner unpack the terms and market dynamics that brought down a whale and ponder the implications of shrugging off a scandal.

In this episode:

Why are people talking about Archegos? (0m 46s)

Bill Hwang's sophisticated financial instruments (4m 05s)

Warnings for Wall Street (8m 18s)

Read more on our website:

• US stock market bulls will crush the bears – again

• UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak told David Cameron he ‘pushed the team’ over Greensil

• Credit Suisse to write down $4.7bn after Archegos implosion

• Global banks brace for Archegos fallout as they may lose more than $6bn

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The year 2020 has been declared a “breakthrough” one for electric vehicles, with sales of EVs up around the world, even in the petrol-happy US.

With tax breaks, new infrastructure plans and Covid-related discounts on zero-emission autos, the market may be at a “tipping point”, according to the World Economic Forum.

But host Mustafa Alrawi, assistant editor-in-chief, says not so fast.

“There’s hype everywhere you look,” he wrote in The National last week, and argued the market is not that much different from other speculative assets such as NFTs, Bitcoin and Spacs.

He and co-host Kelsey Warner unpack the fundamentals of supply and demand, the technology being developed in the broader transport sector and how shareholder value is being affected by EV euphoria.

In this episode:

The hype around EVs (0m 57s)

What is an EV disrupting? (4m 36s)

AVs and EVs (7m 02s)

Buying into the hype (12m 56s)

Read more on our website:

• US stock market bulls will crush the bears – again

• Why GM’s plan to phase out combustion engine cars by 2035 matters

• Intel to manufacture chips for cars to address US shortage

• Cruise to unveil its driverless robotaxis in Dubai in 2023

• The future of the daily commute: how going to work is set to improve city life

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More than a century in the making, a genomics revolution is now unfolding. The extent of the Covid-19 outbreak has prompted nations and biotech companies to pour billions of dollars and emergency resources into the field, spurring it to new heights of potential. Within a month of the first novel coronavirus case reported in Wuhan, the 29,903 letters that make up the pathogen’s genome were published online.

Now, more than a year later, researchers around the world are scrutinising the genetic markers of the virus, helping public health workers at nearly every layer of pandemic response, from contact tracing to surfacing treatments. Last month, Abu Dhabi strategic investment fund Mubadala announced it would invest $1.1 billion in UK life sciences businesses to boost the sector after the pandemic.

To explain the science and investment opportunity for the flourishing field, host Kelsey Warner is joined by Damien Ng, a research analyst at Swiss wealth management firm Julius Baer.

In this episode:

The life sciences and genomics revolution spurred by Covid-19 (0m 40s)

What is genomics? (2m 16s)

What are the investment opportunities? (5m 10s)

Health data and privacy (15m 50s)

Read more on our website:

• UAE and UK sign £1bn deal to invest in life sciences

• Coronavirus: why quickly mapping the viral genome was ‘extraordinary’ and what's next

• Coronavirus explained: Why experts say more countries need to search for new Covid-19 mutations

• Omics gene-sequencing lab in Abu Dhabi to revolutionise health care

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