STANDPOINT by Atique Naqvi

Expo 2020 Win to Boost the Retail Sector By Atique Naqvi  |  Dubai, UAE  |  Originally published in TRENDS magazine Arab women in a shopping mall. Retail and tourism sectors are likely to get an unprecedented boost if the UAE wins bid to host Expo 2020, which is to be announced in November this year, says an AT Kearney analyst. Dr Martin Fabel, Partner and head of Consumer Industry and Retail Practice, AT Kearney Middle East told TRENDS Mena that Expo 2020 will translate into more real estate development, more tourists, more business activity and trade and will eventually result in more retail potential for the UAE. However, retailers will have to carefully consider the right location and layout choices for new stores, he said. “Due to progressive saturation of the UAE market, retailers need to become more sophisticated to find additional sources of growth. Format diversification and multichannel development will be a key lever aiming at interacting ...

Satiating the Thirst of the Energy Sector By Atique Naqvi  |  Dubai, UAE  |  Uploaded on the blog recently** Billions of cubic meters of water is used by the energy sector. Not only is water essential for the survival of life on our planet, it is also the lifeline of the energy sector. Essential for energy production, demand for water is growing at twice the rate of energy demand. And the Middle East’s oil producers, with very limited water resources, face energy production challenges more than the rest of the world. Water is integral to power generation, extraction, transport and the processing of oil, gas and coal. Now with biofuels, water is needed in irrigation of crops used to produce such fuels. The Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that water withdrawals for energy production in 2010 were 583 billion cubic meters (bcm). Of that, water consumption – the volume with- drawn but not returned to its source – was 6...