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Switzerland has one of the strongest and most advanced free market economies in the world. Not only that, it also regularly appears on the top of indexes such as ‘global innovation’ and ‘global competitiveness’. Industry leaders in virtually every sector have Switzerland as their home base. Switzerland has a strong competitive positioning and enjoys political stability with favourable structural conditions. Major banks as well as healthcare, consumer and luxury goods and services companies are just a few examples.

What are the strengths of the Swiss economy?

Innovation and technology

Three of Switzerland’s strengths are especially prominent:

• High degree of innovation,
• Supremely educated workforce
• First-class scientific research organizations, and cutting-edge technologies.

Research and Development Hub: World-Class Universities and research

• R&D: Switzerland invests almost 3.4% of its GDP in research and development, one of the highest percentages in the world. More than 60 universities help to ensure the highest level of professional work.
• International innovation hub: Organizations and companies from Switzerland and abroad value the country’s excellent research platform and its role as an international innovation hub.
• Many companies are based in Switzerland, from biopharmaceutical giants Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roivant Sciences to the research centers of Disney and Google.
• Almost half of Swiss workers are employed in knowledge-intensive industries. High-tech products form an important pillar of the country’s economic success and excellent reputation.
• Intellectual property is effectively protected through patent, trademark, design, and copyright law. In 2019, more than 8,000 patent applications were filed in Switzerland. This is the seventh highest figure in the world and it is the highest figure worldwide per capita.
• Nobel Prize: Switzerland’s international leadership in research is also apparent in the number of Nobel Prize laureates per capita: Switzerland has the highest figure worldwide in this area as well.

Cross-Border Cooperation

As an important center of research, Switzerland attracts highly qualified foreign researchers.

- Several internationally important institutions are based in Switzerland. For example, the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN, the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology CSEM and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI).

- CERN is considered to be one of the most important centers in the world for basic research in physics. It was here, in the late 1980s, that the World Wide Web was developed.

- The Swiss research community actively participates in the cross-border exchange of knowledge. It is well integrated in the cooperation networks of major European nations and covers a wide spectrum of research fields.

Leading Industries and Technologies: A strong location for strong business

Significant international companies choose to locate their headquarters in Switzerland.

• The excellent collaboration between academia and industry in Switzerland ensures the rapid transfer of technology in the field of research and development.
• Three Swiss groups, Roche, Nestle, and Novartis, are among the 40 most valuable companies in the world.
• More than 850 multinational companies have their regional or global headquarters in Switzerland, including giants like Johnson & Johnson, Google, Japan Tobacco, Medtronic, and Adidas.

A unique combination of industry clusters

Switzerland has world-renowned universities and research institutes in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

• Thanks to legislation favorable to data protection and the proximity to top research, prestigious major tech corporations like Google, IBM, and Microsoft conduct their AI research from Switzerland.
• Thanks to outstandingly educated ICT specialists, Switzerland has an excellent base for further growth and innovation in the field of digitization technologies.
• Based on a long tradition in the machine, electrical engineering, metalworking, and watchmaking industries, a highly industrialized precision cluster has developed in Switzerland and is taking up a leading position in the area of robotics and advanced manufacturing in the digital shift era. Various international companies such as ABB, Oerlikon, Schindler, and Hamilton are optimizing their existing production processes in Switzerland with digital solutions.
• Switzerland has one of the most well-established life sciences clusters in the world. As a leading neutral location for global company headquarters, it is extremely attractive for global chemical and pharmaceutical companies such as BeiGene, Takeda, and Biogen, which have located their headquarters and production in Switzerland.
• Switzerland is optimally equipped for the new era of personalized health, in which data is integrated into the healthcare system.
• Switzerland has also developed into an innovation hub for blockchain. Crypto Valley, originating in Zug, has now become a global hub for international development in blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is used in the fields of supply chain management, the insurance industry, energy provision, and logistics.

Successful dual education system: Swiss professionals are among the best in the world

The Swiss education system enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, the Swiss education system has ranked first for many years.

The young Swiss professionals are among the world’s best. This is due to Switzerland’s dual education system, which allows everybody to have career opportunities and to succeed at work.

Switzerland’s dual education system combines an internationally highly regarded academic education with direct, practice-oriented vocational training. Together, the university degree courses and apprenticeships ensure an ideal mix of talent spanning both theory and practice.

Investment and trade

Switzerland is an attractive location for foreign investors. At the end of 2018, foreign direct investments amounted to approximately 1’300 billion Swiss francs.

Switzerland is an important player in world trade. Exports make up around 33% of the gross domestic product. As a result, Switzerland has taken a leading role among the important exporters in world trade, with regard to both goods and services.

Automobile and aviation industry:

The classic example of a successful export-oriented branch of industry is what is known as Switzerland’s “secret automobile and aviation industry” – a little-known network of highly specialized manufacturing companies and problem-solvers providing components for a range of areas, from precision and micromechanics to materials technology, plastics, and textiles.

Innovation Focus Areas in Switzerland

With 242 funding rounds in 2018, Switzerland ranked fifth behind Sweden. Its funding volume of €1.3 million even puts it at number four, after France, Germany and the UK. Switzerland as a whole is also far out in front in Europe, a report from EY reveals.

Switzerland Innovation focuses on five innovation focus areas:

• Health and life sciences,
• Mobility and transportation,
• Energy, environment and natural resources,
• Manufacturing and production,
• and computer and computational science.

Each of these fields is a breeding ground for the development of a broad range of innovations that benefit society in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, space, nanotechnology, materials research, additive manufacturing, diagnostics, cancer treatments, or renewable energy.

List of projects/properties open to investors

• Complete management (private bank with all VIP services included)
  • Dynamic investment funds (modifiable at any time according to the client's wishes)
  • Tax optimization included
  • Mandates due to incapacity
  • Management of extra-mandatory LPP assets
  • Many other services making life easier for investors, etc.
• Investment funds
  • Different types according to nature/form/sector/region/etc.
• Swiss start-up in the field of medical innovation
• Hotels, restaurants, bars & casinos (Switzerland, Tunisia)
• Real estate - Purchase/Sale (Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Sicily, Mauritius, Greece, Croatia, Dubai, Bahrain, etc.)
• Discotheques and private clubs (Geneva)
• Alternative products with high plus value (Rum, Balsamic, Whiskey, etc.)
  • Gain taxed as an increase in wealth and not as tax-attractive income ð fiscally attractive
• Plantations to obtain products with high economic potential
  • Patented systems
• Economic development of South Asia
  • Different products: management account, investment funds, bonds, stocks, etc.
• Aircraft engine rental business
• Buying company with Luxury renovation and Resale of real estate (Germany)
  • Only property protected by the german State for reasons of cultural heritage
• Luxury rentals in urban Switzerland
• Manufacture of LEDs in Tunisia (distributed to the 4 corners of the globe)
• Works of art (paintings, jewelry, etc.)
  • Buying & reselling
• 3rd pillars A/B
  • 3A: Tax savings (only for people working in Switzerland)
  • 3B: Freedom of designation of the beneficiary (inheritance law) - Also for foreigners
• Life insurance
  • A/B, guaranteed/linked to a fund, with/without pensions of disability, with/without death benefit, etc.
• Life annuity
  • Immediate/deferred, with/without restitution, on one/more heads, etc. - Fiscal advantages
• Dismantling & resale in aircraft parts (between Switzerland and Togo)
• Investments in resource extraction and/or development in Africa
• Acquisition and secure custody of physical gold in Switzerland
• Acquisition and transfer of all types of cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, etc.)
• Release of blocked bank funds/accounts

If you are interested in one of these projects, please contact us at:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We will put you in touch with partners specializing in these different projects/sectors.

Translated by: Hayat Hernández

Although palm trees are considered beautiful decorative plants and very suitable for sunny days, they have a very significant role in nutrition being a rich source of vitamins and important minerals.

As said in the Quran “For it is He who has brought into being gardens-[both] the cultivated ones and those growing wild -and the date-palm, and fields bearing multiform produce, and the olive tree, and the pomegranate: [all] resembling one another and yet so different! Eat of their fruit when it comes to fruition, and give [unto the poor] their due on harvest day. And do not waste [God's bounties]: verily, He does not love the wasteful”, Al Ana‘am (6: 141)

It’s thought that the first place where palm trees were cultivated was the Arabian island “Harkan” in Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf, and later spread through Iraq into the other parts of the world according to “Ibn Wahshyah”, one of the oldest writers in terms of agriculture. Confirmed by “Al Subai’I” 1933.

Palm trees and different cultures

This tree was a symbol of warship amongst Chaldea, Assyrians and Phoenicians, in fact, many ministries in Arab countries relate palm trees with culture, religion and history. According to the official website of the ministry of agriculture in Jordan, palm tree was mentioned in the Jewish scripts, as well as dates which were one of the seven sacred fruits. It was mentioned in the bible also that Crist was born under a palm tree, and his followers paved the ground with palm leaves along his way when he entered Jerusalem. As for Islam, dates have a very special quality when it comes to Ramadan (the month that Muslims fast during), where it is desirable for the fasting person to break his fast on dates. This was proven by the actions of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace.

Many civilizations have cherished palm trees since the beginning of their rise by decorating their palaces and monuments, their trunks were also used as columns. Cultivating palm trees was the first type of farming that certain laws were made for to follow, as it was in Hammurabi’s Code.

The Economic value

Some of the oil supplying countries are having a drop off in the oil production, while in the meantime there is another kind of oil in the pipeline that requires different climate conditions, and that is palms oil.

Nowadays, 30 countries around the world cultivate palm trees, almost 600 thousand hectares of farmed land, 422 thousand of them belong to Arab lands. The economic worth of this plant is tremendous that it’s in the vein of oil growing on trees. The Arab world has come in the lead in the dates production by 70% of international production, out of 100 million trees that are planted in the world, almost 80 million are planted in Arab countries. Although palm trees cultivation isn’t the easiest, the outcomes of this kind of investment are noteworthy considering 80 to 100 Kg of dates come from just one tree after 7 years of planting.

Obviously the date fruit production represents a very significant sector in the economy, and it’s rising constantly. For example, Turkey consumes almost 10 thousand tons of dates in Ramadan according to the Jordan newspaper “Al-Raya”, and this sector is considered to be in the lead in terms of hiring a tremendous number of workers, which reduces the average number of unemployed people in the Arab world.

Regarding the types of dates that exist, they passed 2000 types, in Iraq only there are over 600 types, 400 in Iran, and almost 400 in Libya according to the “Iraqi Network of Palm Tree”, plus over 400 type of dates in Saudi Arabia, in addition to the varieties that are cultivated in all Africa excluding Libya, they would reach more than 2000 varieties, every type having a different name which illustrates the importance of this agroindustry.

Population growth

The number of human population on earth will reach 9 billion people in 2050, which will cause the need of more food to increase, and consequently, MENA resources to decrease especially palm trees and dates due to many factors, but it will remain the best region to grow palms regarding the climate and soils.

Healthy benefits of date fruit

Balah (a type of dates) contains most basic nutrients for the human body, and they are considered a good source for vitamins. This fruit is like a mine containing a lot of basic minerals like phosphorus, calcium, iron, magnesium, sodium, sulfur, and chloride. It has also numerous benefits on the health being consumed as food, a fruit, a drink, dessert, and also a medicine. It contains 21% of water and many vitamins such as vitamin A, B1, B2, D, 1.2% protein, 18% fat, 73% sugar, and 3% fibers. 1 Kg of dates provides your body with the same amount of calories that a kilogram of meat does, and three times the calories that 1 Kg of fish provides.

Date fruits contain monosaccharaides (glucose and fructose) such as Al-Barhi, Al-Sayer, Al-Zuhdi, Al-Sidi, and Halawi, and disaccharides (sucrose) such as Dajla Noor and Dajla Baida.

All parts of the palm tree can be useful, such as:

The kernel: suitable as fodder for livestock and increases its production of meat and milk. And enters in the yeast industry as well.

Leaves and fronds: to make tools, furniture, antiques, cages, ropes and baskets.

Logs: to make house roofs, doors and seats in addition to bridges, archways and pulp.

Parts of the stems can be used as fuel or tanks for planting ornamental plants.

Some types of dates are used to extract natural incense from, such as Dagla, which is bred in Morocco.

The fruit (Rutab and Dates): has a high nutritive value, as well as being a source for oil, sugar, and syrup, besides its role in the cosmetic industry.

Pollen: used in pharmaceutical manufacture.

Roots: to keep the soil consistent.

Palms and the surrounding environment

Date palm tree has a significant role in maintaining a balanced environment and preventing the desert invasion, due to its ability to adapt to it, the extension of its roots vertically and horizontally permits the plant to reach humid areas in order to get to the sources of water. As for the leaves, they are attached to the wickers and covered with a waxy layer and folded into V shape along their branch, forming a canoe-like shape, with its bottom facing upward to reduce water loss. Palm trees are also used to ward off the wind around farms, as they prevent and slow desertification. They also protect the trees and plants grown around them. The palm also tolerates high temperatures, salinity and drought.

Arab countries that most produce this unique fruit:

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom owns more than 23 million palm trees, with a production exceeding one million tons, according to Food and Agriculture Organization "FAO", equivalent to 16% of the total global production, and increasing by about 3% annually. The Kingdom supports palm farmers by about 50 riyals per palm, and this market also provides thousands of job opportunities. There are dozens of factories to manufacture palm products. Nevertheless, the kingdom does not export more than 5% of its annual output.

The most famous area in which date palm is cultivated is the Qassim region, where the "City of Dates" was established. It is famous for containing almost eight million palm trees, of which there are six million productive trees, more than 205 thousand tons of various types of dates are also grown in Saudi Arabia and more than 400 species, seventy of them have a high economic value.

United Arab Emirates

There are about 40 million palm trees in the UAE, 8.5% of them are planted in “Al Ain” region where there is a gene pool that includes almost 120 species, and high quality varieties were added recently imported from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the Sultanate of Oman.

Palestine

Cultivated date palms have existed in Palestine for thousands of years. Being a tree of great economic value, and a great religious status, being a perennial tree, and its ability to withstand many climatic conditions, in addition to its ability to grow in saline soils, palm tree has gained the attention of the Palestinian farmer.

The Mediterranean climate conditions dominant in the area provide optimal conditions for growth and development of date palm.

Date palm cultivation is widespread in Palestine in the Jericho area, the Jordan Valley, and the Gaza Strip, especially in the cities of Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis. Historically, the city of Jericho was called the "City of Palms". Because of the large number of palm plantations in it.

Date palm cultivation is the least labor-intensive crops, and the least labor-intensive crops. The tree needs three years to bear fruit, and after six years it reaches its peak. This sector, which was on the top of the Palestinian agricultural sector in the Jordan Valley, in terms of areas, water consumption, and agricultural labor absorption.

After 1967, considerable areas of the Jordan Valley were cultivated by Israeli farmers with new high-quality date palm cultivars including Medjool. The adaptability of the new cultivars and the use of advanced techniques for propagation and cultivation of dates produced crop of excellent quality and yield to supply local and international markets.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture the cultivated area in the Palestinian valleys with palm trees is estimated at about 24 thousand dunums at the end of 2020 out of a total of 55 thousand dunums of land that Palestinians exploit in the Jordan Valley. This is a small fraction of 300 thousand dunums suitable for cultivation, but still unexploited. According to the statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, the number of palm trees by the end of 2020 was estimated at about 330 thousand trees, and the quantity of production of pure Palestinian dates until at about 12,800 thousand tons. The Palestinian local market in the West Bank and Gaza Strip consumes about 6,000 tons of dates annually. It was estimated that 60% of the Palestinian production of dates goes to the local market, and only 40% of the production is exported from the Palestinian Majool (Medjool) variety, where the per capita consumption is estimated annually at about 900 grams of dates.

The most important palm varieties cultivated in Palestine are Medjool, Al-Barhi, Elhayani. Medjool dates are one of the finest dates produced in the Palestinian, at the regional and international levels. Because it is grown in areas below sea level; It increases the percentage of oxygen, which gives it a distinct flavor and color.

According to Abu-Qaoud several constraints face date cultivation and development, including high investment costs, poor marketing, and inequitable competition with Israeli products, limited water, pests, and diseases. However, there is a trend by formal governmental agencies as well as by national NGOs to support the cultivation of date palms in Palestine. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has initiated several programs to support date palm cultivation in the Jordan Valley since 2000 with local NGO participation.

Egypt

According to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture, date palms cultivation extends in most governorates of the country where there are about 20 million palm trees, representing 73,653 acres, or about 6.32% of the total fruit cultivated land, as it currently reaches approximately 14% of the total fruit production. This increase is attributed to the expansion of the areas planted with palm trees in the governorates of Matrouh, New Valley, North Sinai, South Sinai, the Red Sea, Nubaria, Toshka, Al Uwaynat, and modern reclaimed lands.

Due to the varied climatic conditions in Egypt, the wet and semi-dry varieties have spread in the Delta and Middle Egypt regions, while the Upper Egypt region, especially Aswan, is known to uniquely contain dry varieties.

Palm trees need relatively high temperatures and low amount of humidity during the summer to produce fruits with good quality and high yield, specific thermal conditions that differ for different varieties are required.

A team of scientists consisting of researchers from the Genetic Engineering Research Institute, and the Central Laboratory for Palm Research and Development of the Agricultural Research Center, as well as the Bioinformatics Department of Nile University succeeded in determining the initial version of the genetic map for some varieties of date palms. Therefore, this accurate information about the commercially desirable species can be used to predict the type and gender of palm trees planted, and to contribute with reveling ways to increase Egypt's production of palm trees as well, thus enhancing its reproduction developing programs to protect the plants from diseases and pests.

Some indicators of the growing interest in palm cultivation:

Date palm tissue culture laboratory

Many countries rely on traditional agricultural methods such as seed and seedling planting, so in order to make a change by developing palm cultivation to increase its production, the Palm Tissue Cultivation Laboratory was established in 1989 at the UAE University, which intended to produce hundreds of thousands of palm seedlings. Consequently, the laboratory gained a prominent scientific position commercially as one of the largest laboratories for palm trees propagation.

Palm tissue cultivation has many advantages compared to the traditional methods, such as:

• Increasing the cultivation of female seedlings that are free of diseases and pests and resilient seedlings, or best pollen producing male seedlings.
• Cultivation of offshoots in sustainable lands directly without waiting for the incubation phase (2-3 years), the offspring then have an entire root system (offspring with whole cells) and are planted during the propagation season (August – September) or (March – April).
• Increasing the production of selected types of dates. One of the most significant advantages of this method is the homogeneity of the produced shoots, which guarantees the homogeneity and velocity of plant growth, as the crop can be harvested after only 4 years of planting.
• Palm seedlings can be propagated from known varieties or from cultivars with a seed origin.
• Ensuring an easy and rapid exchange of plant materials between different regions of the country, or between countries, without risking the spread of diseases or pests.
• Obtaining offsets from palm trees that have lost their ability to produce offspring.
• Considered to be an economic aspect as a result of increasing production in large quantities without causing any type of diseases.

In addition to that, the Dates International Council was established in Saudi Arabia, a large number of conferences and exhibitions were also held in MENA to enhance trade exchange between producing and consuming countries and also to encourage the exchange of expertise among them.

Popular date festivals such as the Palm Carnival in Saudi Arabia were organized, as well as the Emirates International Palm and Date Festival, which was arranged by Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority.

Causes of the decline in date palm production in the Arab region

Agricultural pesticides: Palm trees in Egypt are exposed to many insect pests that reduce the harvest or damage it when stored, and as a result of infection with these pests, the loss in the crop may reach 52%. In fact, some of these pests, such as the red palm weevil, may lead to the death of the palm within a year or two, which limits the spread of palm cultivation in many areas. In addition, these pests don’t just affect the fruit, but also the fronds, branches, roots and the stems.

Lack of the farmers awareness on how to fight agricultural pests.

Using traditional agricultural methods instead of modern technologies for irrigation and fertilization; increasing their rates leads to an increase in the rates of productivity of date palms and thus causing the economic outcome to rise.

Palm trees aging, which leads to a lack of production as is the case in Algeria and Tunisia, where 35% of their palms suffer from a lack of production due to their aging process.

Poor marketing as a result of lack of experience internally and externally.

Weak technical expertise that allows raising the level of the product to fit the international standards of foreign markets, as is the case in some small producing countries.

The high cost of production in the case of poor infrastructure such as roads, high transportation costs, pollen prices, fertilizers and pesticides, as is the case in Palestine where Israel controls palm pollen and pesticides for this type of tree.

Wars and political instability, as happened in Iraq, which toped the list of dates producing countries with more than six hundred species, and it is the place where man began planting palm trees four thousand years ago according to the head of the Date Palm Center at Basra University, Dr. Kazem Jasam Hammadi, who stated for “Deutsche Welle” channel the decline causes in the number of date palms in Basra, which he attributed to the war and high levels of salinity due to the rise in Gulf waters, in addition to the population invasion at the expense of palm groves.

Countries that have made qualitative progress

Palestine

Despite what may seem a small market compared to the other major markets, date producers in Palestine have made a quantum leap in the cultivation of palm trees in terms of quantity and quality within a short period not exceeding six years. The Palestinian farmer was able to plant 59,000 thousand palm seedlings; an area of ​​4,249 acres during the period (2006 - 2012).

A study issued by the Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry in Jericho city and the Jordan valley (Al Aghwar) in 2014 indicated that date palm cultivation is one of the most promising investments, as the production of dates doubled between 2012 and 2014 by 100%, bringing the production amount to about 4000 tons. There are other types of dates in Palestine such as Al-Barhi, Al-Hayani and Medjool.

According to the study carried out by the Jericho Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, dates exports reached 50% of the total agricultural exports during 2011 - 2014, because Palestinian dates fit the international quality standards, which have competed with Israeli dates on the international market. The total number of employees and workers during the harvest season was estimated at 3200 persons.

Rare dates: pass under the sea

Medjool dates are considered one of the finest types of dates produced in the Palestinian, Jordanian territory, on regional and international levels. Due to its growth in areas below sea level, the percentage of oxygen increases, which gives it a distinct flavor and color. As for the expected output of "Majhoul or Medjool" dates for the year 2015, it reached 4 to 5 thousand tons, and this figure may double ten times within one decade, according to the officials of Nakheel, which is owned by PADICO Holding Company, whose annual production of this type reached 400 tons out of 26,000 date palm trees. The Palestinian market is small, but it is a promising market. "This rare date is grown in the Palestinian valleys and parts of Mexico and California, but the" Medjool "dates grown under the sea remain the most distinctive and highest quality, as stated by Engineer Tariq Al-Qawasmi, General Manager of the Arab Agricultural Company in Jericho.

Moamen Mazen Sinokrot, General Manager of Pal Garden in Jericho, which produces 600 tons of dates per year, said that he expects significant growth in the coming period that may reach 30% annually, as a result of high demand and high return on investment.

Palestine won first place (for the fourth category) in the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm in its seventh congregation as the best development project in the field of date palm development, in which 34 Arab and foreign countries participated with 137 research. Dr. Nasser Al-Jaghoub, head of the Agricultural Risks and Insurance Fund, and Ahmed Fares, Director of Jericho Directorate at the Ministry of Agriculture, won the award.

The characteristics of the Medjool or Majool palm tree

The origin of this variety is from the Kingdom of Morocco, but it disappeared from there due to agricultural pests that affected it, so its seedlings were transferred to California and then to the Jordan Valley areas in Palestine and Jordan. This variety is characterized by a medium-sized stem, and short fronds of medium bending, and the bases of the fronds are of medium width, starting with a dark green and then yellowing, and showing lines or brown spots in the middle, the number of thorns on a single frond ranges from 30 to 38, although the fruit is considered amongst the soft varieties, other type of dates fruit can be softer than meat in comparison. The fruits of this variety may suffer damage from rain and high humidity, but to a small degree. The date palm yield ranges from 80 - 100 kg per year.

Jordan

In Jordan there are about a quarter of a million trees, and the Jordan Valley region is the most famous for its palm cultivation and some areas of the northeastern desert (Al-Azraq), and Jordan is making great efforts to develop this cultivation appropriate to the nature of a large part of its lands. Where agricultural reserves for this purpose were being established, as the United Arab Emirates supplied the Kingdom with fifty thousand seedlings of tissues originating from different varieties to study their suitability for agriculture, they included Barhi, Maktoumi, Khalas, Sandy Gish, Khadrawi, Razeer, Zuhdi, Namishi. As for the interest in Medjool dates, it began in Jordan some twenty-five years ago.

Dates are the future sustenance

Engineer Muhammad Batayneh, General Manager of AgriJordan (which grows approximately 4,500 trees), stated that the date palm is the future cultivar, due to the uniqueness of this tree in its ability to purify the water it absorbs from the soil so that the plant does not secret any heavy metals or unwanted elements to the fruit. Because normally, palm trees are irrigated with recycled sewage water, which is a source for many palm farms due to the severe water shortage in the area. As a result to the unique quality of the fibers of the long stem of the palm, it purifies the water as a natural water filter. Batayneh, who is proud of the Jordan Valley dates, especially Medjool dates which are among the best in the world, carries on saying that the future of fruit and vegetables cultivation is endangered because of clean water shortage. However, palm cultivation remains feasible and profitable, and thus the cost of repeated water for irrigation purposes can be borne."

Melita Delos Reyes began her career early, as she worked as a clerk for a big real estate company in Manila, Philippines, but Milet’s ambition pushed her to leave her job to pursue a Degree in Business Administration at Philippine Christian University in 1996.

After graduation Milet worked in the field of Marketing and Sales in several companies. In 2006, she decided to travel to Dubai to work for Alpha UK Training. She worked mainly in the Admin and Operations Department and proactively supported the Marketing and Sales Department. She was in charge of coordinating training logistics and documentation, database management, supplier management, admin tasks and safekeeping of office documents, accounts, and liaising with coaches and various speakers around the world.

The Swiss-Arab Entrepreneur Platform: The massive spread of social media platforms put entrepreneurs in front of an opportunity to choose the best way to market their products through it, but the multi-channel marketing process is very expensive. In your opinion, is working on all platforms the best option, or choosing one channel?

Melita: Entrepreneurs leverage on the impact of Social Media to their business. A robust social media marketing strategy is crucial to drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness and community. While it’s good to increase visibility on different social media platforms, you have to consider what kind of products or services you’re offering and where your target market usually hangs out. Example, if you are an Ecommerce Business, the best way is to be visible on Facebook and consider FB ads.

If you’re into coaching or consulting business, Linkedin is the best platform to boost your online presence and build your brand. Linkedin is the best social selling platform for B2B and B2C companies. Content Marketing Institute found that 63% of marketers rated LinkedIn as the most effective B2B social media platform.

According to Sprout Social “With the exponentially increasing popularity of digital media channels, traditional lead generation is becoming a thing of the past—creating more opportunity for B2B and B2C businesses to drive leads and increase sales now than ever before.”

Using Linkedin, it is easy target your ideal market and create a lead generation system. professional people, decision makers, entrepreneurs and high level executives.

Swiss- Arab Entrepreneur Platform: With your project, you focus on digital marketing on LinkedIn, why did you choose this platform over others? What defines the LinkedIn platform?

Melita:

• Linkedin has over 600 million + users across the globe.

It is a pool of professional people, decision makers, entrepreneurs, high level executives, influencer and affluent people.

• Linkedin is well suited for personal branding and creates more opportunity for B2B and B2C business.
• It is considered the number 1 platform for lead generation. It is built for business networking, a goldmine if utilized properly. :)
• Linkedin has robust search and targeting features to help you find the right people and businesses.

Swiss-Arab Entrepreneur Platform: How Do You Plan On Growing Your Business?

Melita: Consistency is the key to grow your business. Need to maximize the use of Social Media especially Linkedin Marketing to grow my business and followers.

I’m planning to add more services to serve my clients such as Email Copywriting or Email Marketing to nurture leads and better serve my clients.

Swiss-Arab Entrepreneur Platform: Can you tell us more about the digital marketing services provided by your (project?) team?

Melita:We are a complete 1 stop Marketing Agency because we have huge network of Marketing Professionals. We can help you stand out from your competitor, get more leads and clients and scale your business fast.

We have Brand Strategists, Graphics designers, Virtual Assistants, Social Media Managers, Facebook Ads Experts, Website Designers, Copywriters etc. 

Our team is passionate in helping entrepreneurs grow their business by crafting a strategy plan that solves business challenges.

Swiss-Arab Entrepreneur Platform: What advice can you give to new entrepreneurs to make their personal pages appear better on the LinkedIn platform?

Melita: If you’re a startup company or a new entrepreneur, it is best to build your personal branding in Linkedin. In the first few months, you have to build your credibility so that your ideal clients can trust and like you. First step is to optimize your profile so that you will rank higher in search engines and to generate more profile views.

Remember that your profile is your online business card that could be your asset in generating appointments, quality leads and high-ticket clients.

Have clarity on what you offer and think how your service can solve your target market problems.

Second, growing your business in Linkedin must be a priority and not a hobby. Remember that Linkedin is a Social Selling platform so you have to build and nurture relationships.

Let me share my Linkedin growth hacks that could help new or existing entrepreneurs.

(عربي)

During its last session, the Kuwaiti Council of Ministers approved two new laws for the residency of expatriates, according to which a continuous residency period of ten years was granted to investors and property owners of expatriates and 5 years to ordinary expatriates.

The articles of the new law stipulated that it is permissible for a foreigner to reside for a period not exceeding 10 years for both investors and real estate owners, provided that the Council of Ministers issues a decision specifying the areas in which expatriates can invest and the amounts that they must invest, as for expatriates who wish to own real estate in Kuwait, they must obtain approval from the Kuwaiti Council of Ministers, after submitting the required documents to the Ministry of Justice, to review the legal situation of the expatriate and his family members, as they must have their records free of any criminal case or misconduct, and the expatriate should hold a valid residency and should not have any violation of the residency regulations. The purchase of the property should be for own residency and not for renting purposes.

The distinguished residence is considered a temporary residence, that is, it is not automatically renewed. The conditions of the residence may be modified in the future; also the Ministry of Interior reserves the right not to renew the residence for an expatriate based on valid reasons.

This law also allows expatriates subject to a deportation order, to have a grace period in order to be able to liquidate their business, determined by the Ministry of Interior, while not allowing them to return to the country without permission from the Ministry.

In addition to that, the new residency law gives Kuwaiti citizens the ability to obtain a residence permit for their husbands and members of their family, provided that none of them work for a governmental or non-governmental entity, also its citizenship should not be obtained through naturalized by a marriage with a Kuwaiti citizen.

The law stipulates that the maximum period for a domestic worker, wishing to reside abroad, should not exceeding 4 months compared to 6 months before.

It is expected that the new law will revive the real estate sector in Kuwait, and it will also make it easier for expatriates to deposit their money in banks and invest it, instead of transferring it abroad, which will benefit investors, expatriate workers and the Kuwaiti economy.

(العربية)

Mohamed Shaker is a Syrian entrepreneur, born in Damascus in 1990. Mohamed has shown an interest in painting and engineering since his early childhood. This interest, which soon became a passion, crystallized into a major academic pursuit starting first at the university of Damascus. Here, he excelled for several years and received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and artificial intelligence in 2013, before attending the University of Joseph-Fourier in Grenoble, France, where he received a Master's degree in human-machine interaction in 2015.

He has published a number of scientific papers in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which were published between 2013 and 2015. He has also spent time as a visiting researcher at the design laboratory of the technical university of Copenhagen. During the same period, he designed and deployed three games that were generated automatically without a designer, based on artificial intelligence.

Mohammed moved to Amsterdam in 2016 to work for the educational company Squla, which is concerned with transforming scientific content into an interactive activity.

Mohammed Shaker's scientific and professional work received attention from the TechCity UK Foundation in Britain, classifying him as an extraordinary first-level talent in 2018, after which he moved to London.

During his career, Mohammed has also been credited with running the technical side of NFX company in Britain, a medical professional company that helps stroke patients.

From London, where he has been living since 2018, Mohammed launched his first Arab startup company Al-Meta, which specializes in understanding and analyzing Arabic using artificial intelligence. At the beginning of 2020, he launched the “Mind Phrenology” educational platform for junior high school students. Both he and his team are additionally currently working on launching a new educational platform, called Alphazed, an artificially-intelligent educational platform for unconventional education of Arab children.

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: In a postmodernism age, with the results of the communication and information revolution, today's world is flooded with contradictory information and news, often coming to intercept facts approved by scientific complexes, such as the hazards of smoking, the necessity of traffic signals, and the denial of proven and documented incidents and facts at a high level. The process of obtaining knowledge and information-building has become a selective process that is subject to the person's desires and ideological orientations, how do you think “The Meta” can help to solve this dilemma in the Arab region?

Mohamed Shaker: This is a very important question. There are two important points I would like to talk about here.

1. The problem of opinion from one point of view is that we are all born in a certain environment with a certain background and beliefs. All of this shapes who we are, and why we hold on to a particular belief. Our instinct is to agree more with opinions consistent with our ideological background and to attack and rebut opinions that are different from our ideological background. This is very common among us.

Therefore, our first goal in Meta was to be an unaffiliated platform, and to be a platform for showing all views to all Arabs. This is why, in Meta we have worked for four months to develop a system that automatically works to identify and consolidate articles on the same topic in one place (what we call in AI "one cluster" or "cluster"). Within each cluster, we automatically identify the views of each article and compare them with the views of other articles. We also automatically summarize these articles under "the most important thing to know about this news." All of this is then shown to the user to be aware of different points of view and to be aware of the importance of understanding them. See appendix:

We recently added the "News related to this topic" feature to any article. For example, you might see that in this article:

You'll see articles from other news sources on the same subject directly below them, along with the quality rating of their content. All of this is to give the user the right tools to dive into content better, more consciously and more deeply, whenever he or she wants.

We humans don't like absolute things, we like comparisons. A way of evaluating the quality of content and comparing several articles with similar content is the best method to achieve that outcome.

2. We use a non-human unguided agent to examine the content. I think the human factor is always skewed toward one viewpoint even if he or she doesn’t want it to. The existence of "correctly-controlled" industrial intelligence makes this process more reliable. You will find that we have dedicated our services to artificial intelligence. Anyone can enter any link to any Arab article and immedaitely understand the quality of its content. This service is also programmed using an API interface for any Arab or foreign company that wants to measure the quality of any given content. You can look at the appendices.

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: Google's search engine has been criticized for its work in selecting top stories on the basis that the highest payer will appear on top of the search results. Although Google's top news application was launched in 2018, which gave priority to reliable news at the expense of the "client experience" model and the most push sites, the problem remains. What are the criteria of selecting news on the Meta application? Do you have contracts of some kind with news sites, newspapers or news agencies?.

Mohamed Shaker: think that statement is quite right. It’s the "ethical AI" or "ethical intelligence" problem, which is a problem in any system that uses artificial intelligence. I will give you an example. In the area of autonomous vehicles, if for some reason the probability of an accident is 100%, will the "smart system" decide to crash into a child, an old man, or a wall (and cause the driver's inevitable death)? Will the intelligent system choose to save the driver and cause the old man to die because he is old or it will choose the child? All of these are questions we must ask, know their answer, and set controls. I think that in “Al-Meta” we are very much highlighting this concept. That is why we are among the very few Arab companies worldwide that publish how they build their artificial intelligence systems for advertising. For the simple reason that we want our audience to know how our systems work, to be available to all, and to add or request a modification. Despite our very small team size and the very high cost of these documents, we’ve done it from the first day of the platform. We now have over 100 articles on our blog – http://almeta.io/blog

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: The launch of a new application or platform needs at least six months, as industry professionals say, but with your six-member team, you can launch the Meta app and two educational platforms within a standard period (3-4 months), can you tell us what this success is all about?

Mohamed Shaker: It's best if I break this down into two points.

1. Team effort. Our team members are very carefully selected. My two main requirements for their recruitment were that they had designed or completed a perfect project from 0 to 100 themselves before. Second, they can take any idea from a mere concept to a final software product themselves. I think that when you set the hiring criteria bar so high, you will always be pleased later down the line. I met with 200 people to eventually choose four technical people. The hardest step in defining them as an engineering structure was switching them over from what they were used to in Arab countries. All of them surprised me with their willingness to learn and their ability to adapt very quickly. That's what I love about our team.
2. I think my previous experience working with Western start-ups was beneficial. In addition, I experienced the transition from being specialist in artificial intelligence to becoming more of a generalist, which means I constantly want to know more about everything. After I moved to the UK, I joined an emerging company where I was the only tech person, which helped me to learn a lot. This is because the process led me to employ everything I had learned in the past to create, design and implement a product from the idea stage to creating a complete platform by myself. It gave me the understanding of how to build complete products and projects from scratch without fear. It’s something I’ve gone through four times so far. In each case I went from nothing to a full product. This process would give any entrepreneur great self-confidence, since very few programmers are now generalists who can build complete systems themselves. My reading of books in different fields (including non-technical literature) has actually helped me within technical fields. I try to read 70-90 books a year. I think it has changed my thinking completely within the last ten years. It made me think differently to the conventional wisdom about the world of work (and outside of work too).

The Swiss Arab entrepreneurs: the spread of the covid 19 epidemic has affected all economic and social life, and the education sector has suffered most of the damage caused by the epidemic. You have had an impact on facing the effects of the epidemic on the education sector in the Arab region by launching the Alphazid and Mind Phrenology educational platforms. What can you tell us about these platforms? Where do you find the medium-term future for digital education in the Arab region?

Mohamed Shaker: We started about four months before the COVID outbreak with the launch of the “Mind Phrenology" platform for secondary and tertiary students and their psychological support, which is a completely overlooked aspect of the secondary "signs." If schools and universities continue to be closed, we will focus more on the "Mind Phrenology" and within two weeks we will have launched an integrated learning application that also incorporates the educational aspect of the secondary grades. Its simple function is to provide all educational videos from the best teachers and schools in one platform and to make search and web services available to everyone. The application is free for everyone and is available to any secondary or tertiary student. Then we’ve also focused on an app for younger kids 6-12 years old with "alphazed." We could have launched it on May 5, 2020. But I eventually decided to delay and build up it to provide an educational environment for children that is completely different from any other educational application, Arab or foreign. The application delivers content in the same way we learn as we are young, which is in a conversational and the anecdotal style rather than the conventional learning style (you can see some prototypes here: https://thealphazed.com/). I wanted it Arabic with a new creative Arabic sense, so applying Al-Fazid takes a lot of my interest at the moment and will be available in July of 2020.

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: Twitter recently announced that it would allow its employees to work remotely permanently even after the (COVID 19) shutdown is over. Can twitter's actions be considered an indicator of a telecommuting model of the business landscape in the near future, Or will the expansion of the adoption of the tele-business model remain a casual issue that retreats with the end of the virus-related closure (COVVE19)?

Mohamed Shaker: I think we can reshape the question, will COVID affect only the business sector or life in general? Here in the West, there is a great concern, for example, about public transportation. I think those concerns are legitimate. You can ask the question, when will you feel safe riding on London's public transport? In most cases that won’t be until there is a vaccine and it is available to everyone. Because it is impossible to imagine being in London Underground without the rush-hour crowds of 8:30 a.m, I think that this will shape our overall lives for the next of the year, at least in the West. I think that will lead us to be more dynamic as human beings. Not only due to COVID, but how we are aligned with any other future habits. As Darwin says: The species that will remain is the most adaptable species, not necessarily the strongest. So I think that same concept applies perfectly to today’s Arab companies, including those of foreigners.

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: Through your experience in the remote working environment, what challenges and benefits do you have from adopting this model?

Mohamed Shaker: I think it is a process that can be measured from three points of view.

1. From the company's point of view: The freedom to choose the most efficient methods without hindrance from geographical locations.
2. From the employee's point of view (called the word "abday" in Meta): Having the freedom to plan their time and choose how their day is divided. They have more time for themselves to learn new things or to spend time with their family.
3. From the point of view of the country where the employee lives: I think the economic recovery is very good in this case in the Arab countries, which have competent young people who want to learn and work on efficient projects. This is a very important point at this moment in time because of the current situation of the Arab countries.

Arab-Swiss entrepreneurs: Projects that you have launched are self-financing, and so far there have been no profit yeilding through these projects, what is your future plan to achieve financial gains through these projects?

Mohamed Shaker: Although I have reservations about the behavior of Elon Musk recently, I will always remember him saying what I have always thought of since the beginning of these projects: "When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor." Its meaning is that: "When you work on things of importance, you make an effort for their success even if the circumstances and opportunities are against you."

With reference to our learning application, I think the current situation in the Arab region (outside the Gulf region) for education and content projects is difficult and unprofitable in the short term and, therefore, will be difficult in the long term. Arab startups are moving away from the main problems in our country and are focusing on many unhelpful apps at the expense of useful apps. Unfortunately, useful applications are not profitable and have little audience because of the country's difficult situation, most app users are looking for something that distracts them, putting their mind at ease.

But, I like to do this because it is important for my people and nation and I think I can do a lot in this aspect because of my background in engineering, education, and design. I think it is a background that makes it incumbent on me to bring experience to my people. This is what many Arab expatriates in the West overlook when they forget things that tie them to their homeland.

At the same time, I do not think it is a good thing to see that the project is not profit-making and far-reaching. Because if we can't afford it, we won't be able to deliver our products as originally intended.

Thinking 100 years forward changes your view of things. I like to think at the start of a learning project like Alphazed about what the world will look like 100 years from now. Its impact will not be visible until the current generation expands and I won’t even be here by the year 2100. But if we start it now, we will have added and improved the education of generations to come. Not just one generation, but every generation from today to 2100 and beyond.

Thinking now about the financial return, if we can deliver the most useful and best learning experience 100 times but at one tenth of the cost of others, and make it available for 100 million users instead of 10,000, then we have achieved a financial return that is sufficient to achieve a long-term vision for the next 100 years. We can also reap a financial dividend that will drive us to change generations to come, not just a single generation. This is my idea for an educational project like Alphazed.

For the Meta, the subject is similar. What can the Meta do? In 100 years? I think the Meta is much bigger than that. There are no limits to the amount of creativity and growth that can occur, for Arab minds in particular and for the wider human population in general. If we can change from Arab reality based on a one-view theory and if we can provide services to other companies to use this tech in new applications, our influence will not be limited to 300 million Arabs, but available for any human being and person who believe in the cohesion of ideas.

(العربية)

On May 18, Wamda Foundation and the ArabNet website released a special report titled "The Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa", which highlighted the situation of startups in the Middle East and North Africa in light of the Coronavirus pandemic in both the region and the rest of the world. The report aimed to identify the impact of COVID-19 on the region's entrepreneurship sector as well as measures that can be taken to relieve financial pressures on startups.

In the introduction, the report presented the macroeconomic conditions in the Arab region. It noted the negative repercussions of the low oil prices that led to major tremors in the economies of the oil-producing Arab countries, the worsening economic crisis in Lebanon, the high prices in Egypt, and the increase of the value-added tax in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
These conditions have driven to the push towards embracing the digital economy for the sake of continued economic growth. For startups in the region, the situation is either catastrophic or a stimulus for growth, in the words of the authors of the report. In the following summary, we will cover the most important points in the report.

Where are startups located?

The United Arab Emirates is still at the forefront of countries in the MENA region in embracing startups and new entrepreneurs. It’s home to 24% of startups in the region, followed by Lebanon, where startups have enjoyed remarkable growth. They account for approximately 18% of the total startup population in the region, followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt with 14.7% and 13.1%, respectively. By contrast, Iraq and Yemen ranked last with 0.4% each.

What sectors are startups active in?

Perhaps the most prominent repercussions of COVID-19 on the business world are the effects on the fundamental structure of economic activity. Work prospects are temporarily blocked in the face of the lack of demand, whereas new horizons have been opened within other areas that were less active before the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. The figures reflect these market shifts, with data showing that 6.5% of emerging companies active in the Middle East and North Africa are working in the field of digital medical care, and 6.9% of them are working in digital learning. Both sectors that have witnessed significant growth since the onset of the pandemic. The data also shows an increase in the software solutions sector. This segment accounted for 13.5% of emerging companies active within the region, representing the largest slice of the overall market. Software solutions were swiftly followed by electronic commerce (e-commerce) with 11%. This sector, in particular, has always been at the forefront of a number of emerging companies in the Arab region over the last few years. Lastly, the financial solutions technology sector took third place with 9.4%. It’s tipped to become the fastest-growing business sector over next few years.

The stages of development of startups

According to the life cycle of startup financing in the MENA region, the first phase, known as the Seed stage, accounts for 31.4% of companies, which is the highest percentage of those seeking funding in the region. The second highest proportion of companies were in the initial financing stage (29%), followed by the first financing round at 18%. Those in the second and third rounds of financing represented 4.5% and 2.4% of startups respectively. Those financed by angel investors was about 14.7%, and this percentage perhaps indicates the increasing number of emerging projects reaching the first round of financing. With faster access to financing, startups can scale quicker and compete with established players in the market.

The impact of the epidemic on startups

The COVID-19 pandemic forced people to stay in their homes, directly impacting the travel and transportation sector. A third of the companies active in the transport sector within this region suspended their activities. Consequently, their revenues suffered a loss of around 75 to 100%. Furthermore, 25% of startups in the travel sector stopped operating completely, and 50% of them have subsequently suspended their business activities.

The lockdowns, uncertainty, and negative outlook for the economy have had a negative impact on 71% of startups, with 22% suspending their activities altogether. A further 21% of startups have witnessed a decrease in demand, which has led to large losses. On the other hand, most of the emerging companies in the field of delivery services (e-commerce), digital education, and digital health have benefited from a significant increase in the demand for their services, which has reflected positively on their revenues, particularly in the e-commerce sector.

Financing startups in light of the epidemic situation

The spread of the global pandemic has put a great strain on demand in international markets, which has led to a decline in oil that, in turn, has reduced the available resources of financing for startups. Most of the regional financing operations come from the oil-producing countries, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which were affected by the drop in oil prices. The pressure on financing opportunities exposed most emerging companies to the risks of poor cash flow management. On the subject of financing rounds affected by the impact of the pandemic, the answers of the respondents to the questionnaire can be summarized as follows:

• 6% said that the epidemic affected their financing rounds.
• Of those 49.6% above, 44% said that their financing rounds were either stopped or canceled.
• 8% of the respondents said that their investment environment had improved.
• 1% said that their financing rounds were not affected by the epidemic.
• 5% of respondents said that they are not looking for funding, so they were not affected by funding from the epidemic.

In answering a question about whether investors were involved in the day-to-day operation of their business, the answers were as follows:

• 4% were unsure of the answer
• 1% answered no
• 5% said yes

Emerging companies respond to the epidemic

This section of the report discussed how the emerging companies responded to the pandemic, as the founders of the startups rapidly reassessed their priorities. The discussions were focused on how to expand and grow their products in view of the current situation, as well as adapting the work environment to ensure the continuity of the company’s work.

On the question of how to respond to the pandemic, most of the responses indicated a multifaceted approach, the most important of which was changing the work environment to become remote. Almost two thirds of respondents said that they moved to work from home (WFH) setups in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Other popular responses included taking the option to postpone expansion plans, reduce prices and introduce special offers. By contrast, a number of startups chose the option of reducing the number of workers, reducing wages and reducing working hours. Many other companies had a more positive response by exploiting the situation to launch new marketing campaigns, establish new partnerships with suppliers, and recruit new employees as part of their pandemic response.

When the authors of the report asked about the type of support that could help startups in continuing their businesses, it was found that more than half wished to obtain new investments or grants. The founders (who were included in the questionnaire) expressed their desire to obtain investment, loans, or assignment invoices to support the ecosystem of the startups within the region. The report concludes its findings in two axes, namely the affected sectors and then focusing on the conditions of three countries, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But we will leave our analysis here, and let the reader download the full report from the source.

However, to conclude, we will summarize the three general points contained within this report.

The first point relates to the exaggerated pessimistic view of the macroeconomic expectations, which has been coordinated by many media outlets and local economists. It’s expected that badly-affected companies that have suffered great losses during the pandemic may decide to surrender and sell their shares to major companies at a very low price. The negative expectations for the future of economic growth in the world depends on incomplete data such as the drop in oil prices. Many felt the drop in oil prices would continue; leading to a situation that threatens the whole global economy. However, oil prices have risen since the beginning of May and reached 35 dollars per barrel after the oil producers agreed to reduce production. There’s also been major economic restoration to mitigate the widespread closures, as has happened in China and European countries recently.

The second point relates to the growth in various economic sectors such as the pharmaceutical sector, medical supplies, and the software sector. With the potential for further growth within other sectors, such as the educational sector and the electronics production sector, many investment theaters will continue to expand rather than decline. There are also a number of underdeveloped economic sectors that are expected to have a leading position in the future, stimulated by the achievements of the fourth industrial revolution.

Third and finally, the startups in the region are built on fertile ground, full of investment opportunities and in which competition is weak and startups are encouraged by local governments. All of this leads us to conclude that the negative repercussions of this situation, due to the continued spread of COVID-19, also constitute an opportunity that can be exploited. Companies can use the ongoing scenario to learn how to adapt to the unusual conditions that are associated with low funding and weak demand. For example, many will benefit from the experience of crisis management while observing and learning from other startups that have managed to keep their business running, and in some cases, continued their expansion operations.

By Ayman Abualkhair

(Francais)

We are experiencing very special times, given the fact that the COVID-19 outbreak has reached 177 countries and regions and its spreading all over the world at an unpredictable pace.

This crisis has revealed our weakness as human beings, the imbalances that exist in many areas of our life, and the need to make serious reviews of our way to live. It shows more particularly the invalidity of the principle “every man for himself” should not lead to the well-being for anyone.

This crisis shows the unity of mankind's destiny and human brotherhood in an unprecedented way. The risk facing an individual or a community can affect everyone regardless of places, ethnicities or national and religious affiliations.

Coronavirus has completely changed our way of life, it is no longer as before: shopping queues, no more gatherings at school, there are no more children who play at the playgrounds, no more meetings at work, no more mass celebrations, no more physical contact with friends or even with relatives ... Coronavirus has banned all kinds of humans gatherings!. Everyone must fear for his own person, we are living hard times. But this pandemic disease also offers the opportunity for everyone to think deeply about his/her life, what he/she did and what he/she should do today and tomorrow. Above all, we must ask ourselves, why we are not prepared for such pandemic virus, when we have accumulated unprecedented scientific knowledge in many fields?!. Bill Gates said in 2015, during a TEDX conference, that the real danger to humans is not an atomic bomb but rather a virus! It is without doubt that we have to invest more resources into health protection and the well-being of human being.

The catastrophic consequences of Coronavirus on the world economy require immediate actions from decision-makers around the world, to protect the local economies, mainly SMEs, from collapsing.

I hope this worldwide crisis will be a catalyzer to a collective work in order to achieve a better future for everybody.

Stay safe, stay home!