STANDPOINT by Atique Naqvi

"The private sector in the UAE should invest more in AI as no business is immune to new technologies" Artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics in healthcare, trade, and transportation are set to boost several ancillary industries and provide huge growth opportunities for the businesses in the GCC. While the UAE government is figuring out opportunities in artificial intelligence to make targeted investments, the private sector should venture into the area more robustly as no business sector is immune from new technologies and right investments now will set the tone for future growth, according to the German-Australian scientist and AI expert Dr. Christian Guttmann. Click here to read from the original article on Zawya news website - a Thomson Reuters company.

50% of government transactions to be on Blockchain by 2021. Government departments in the United Arab Emirates are adopting blockchain technologies faster than the private sector, and there are more than 30 projects under development as part of Smart Dubai initiative alone. As part of this initiative, Smart Dubai has launched a blockchain platform as a service to host government use cases, and over all there are more than 30 blockchain platforms under development. “Through this policy, government entities are encouraged to establish integration channels with the aim to improve functioning of services that cut across areas of responsibility of several entities, and increasingly to enable digital integration with the private sector,” the report said. Click here to read from the original article on Zawya news website - a Thomson Reuters company.

Jebel Ali Port in Dubai The dwindling buying power of consumers, owing to slow economic growth, is adversely affecting trading companies and putting pressure on average industrial rents in the UAE. Though rents have plunged in the first two quarters of 2019, this is seen as an opportunity for firms to scale up their businesses. Average headline industrial rents have softened in Abu Dhabi and Dubai by 12.1 percent and 4.8 percent respectively in the first two quarters of 2019, according to global real estate consulting and research firm Knight Frank. Click here to read from the original article on Zawya news website - a Thomson Reuters company.