October 17, 2021

130th Canton Fair: China to continue opening-up, sharing opportunities with the world

GUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — On October 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the 130th Canton Fair.

In his letter, Xi noted that the Fair made significant contributions to facilitating international trade, internal-external exchanges, and economic development since its founding in 1957.

Facing global changes and a pandemic both unseen in a century, the world economy and trade are undergoing profound transformations. The Canton Fair, therefore, should help foster China’s new development paradigm, innovate its mechanism, create more business models, and expand its role to become a vital platform for the country’s opening-up on all fronts, Xi said.

This platform should also help advance the high-quality development of global trade and facilitate the “dual circulation” of domestic and overseas markets. China is willing to join hands with all other nations and practice real multilateralism to build a world economy featuring high-level openness, Xi said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the 130^th Canton Fair and the Pearl River International Trade Forum in China’s southern city of Guangzhou. He said China’s development is propelled by opening-up and reform, and the country will share its development opportunities with the world to achieve better development.

130th Canton Fair: China to continue opening-up, sharing opportunities with the world

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Cote d’Ivoire Prime Minister Patrick Achi and Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development Rebeca Grynspan attended the ceremony via video link.

Premier Li said the history of the Canton Fair is a history of China’s opening-up and integration into the world economy, and also a history of enterprises from all over the world sharing China’s development opportunities and achieving mutual benefit and win-win results.

Foreign leaders spoke highly of the Canton Fair’s role in promoting international trade and facilitating the global economic recovery in the post-pandemic era. They expressed their confidence in China’s economic development prospects and said that they will encourage companies from their countries to expand cooperation in China to better share China’s development opportunities.

After the opening ceremony, Premier Li inspected some domestic and foreign exhibition halls and listened to their briefings on businesses. In the end of the inspection, Premier Li said he hopes the Fair can scale new heights in advancing win-win cooperation and sustainable development.

Please visit: https://fbuyer.cantonfair.org.cn/en/account/new-buyer/register for more opportunities

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1661958/130th_Canton_Fair.jpg

October 17, 2021

ADJD launches AI-backed interactive case registration service in Abu Dhabi courts

ABU DHABI, Youssef Saeed Al Abri, Under-Secretary of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD), has launched the artificial intelligence-backed Interactive Case Registration (ICR) service in Abu Dhabi courts, the first of its kind in the world.

The service aims to enable court users to file their cases without the need to be fully conversant with the applicable laws and court procedures, thus permitting the completion of the proceedings by interacting with the digital service which they feed data to determine the type of case and the competent court, and obtain a case number and a date for the first hearing in the case.

In this regard, Al Abri noted that the digital initiatives of the Judicial Department have achieved a qualitative leap in improving the quality of services provided to court users and in developing the judicial system in line with the digital transformation of the Abu Dhabi government and in implementation of the directives of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs, and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, to take advantage of modern technologies and advanced systems to ensure the sustainability and continuity of business on a forward-looking basis.

The Interactive Case Registration service, Al Abri explained, relies on artificial intelligence to accurately and promptly determine all at once the type of lawsuit, the competent court, and the applicable fees, through easy steps and a user-friendly interface ensuring accuracy and speed, using the connection with other government databases to retrieve case party details, handle the digital payment and other procedures to complete the registration such as verifying the details of the parties and legal notices.

The innovative digital initiatives and solutions put in place by the Judicial Department are reinforcing its global leadership, especially with the rollout of the 100% remote litigation scheme, under its new 2021-2023 Strategic Plan, which aims to ensure the court user’s happiness by engaging in innovative judicial and legal services, providing a distinctive experience by leveraging on technical development and AI-supported smart services, the Under-Secretary of the ADJD said.

Source: Emirates News Agency

October 17, 2021

ADNOC Drilling Board approves ambitious growth plan, sees inclusion in major global indices

ABU DHABI, ADNOC Drilling Company today announced continued confidence in the key business growth and budget resolutions at the inaugural meeting of the newly formed ADNOC Drilling Board, and welcomed the inclusion of the Company in three globally-recognised Indices: FTSE Emerging Index, FTSE Global Large Cap Index and FTSE All-World Index.

This follows the Company’s recent highly successful initial public offering (IPO) on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX), which marked the largest-ever ADX listing to date.

The inaugural ADNOC Drilling Board meeting was chaired by Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, ADNOC Managing Director and Group CEO, as well as ADNOC Drilling Chairman. The Company’s Board approved ADNOC Drilling’s ambitious five-year business growth plan for 2022 to 2026, as well as the 2022 budget.

These key approvals reinforce ADNOC Drilling’s integral position as the sole provider of drilling rig hire and rig-related services to ADNOC Group (ADNOC), as the Company maintains and further grows its critical role in enabling ADNOC to deliver on its 2030 crude oil production capacity target of 5 million barrels per day and achieving gas self-sufficiency for the UAE.

Further underpinning the Company’s growth momentum and strong market position, ADNOC Drilling has been included in three major global FTSE Russell Indices (FTSE Indices), which are used by investors around the world to benchmark investment performance and portfolio compositions. ADNOC Drilling was included in these key global indices by FTSE after meeting all necessary requirements, less than two weeks after its record ADX listing.

Following the inaugural board meeting, Dr. Al Jaber commented, “The inclusion of ADNOC Drilling into three world-renowned FTSE Indices marks another strong endorsement from the global financial markets in both the Company and Abu Dhabi’s thriving equity capital market. It also further increases the attractiveness of ADNOC Drilling’s shares to the international investor community, with the potential to add to the diversification of its overall investor base.

“ADNOC Drilling will continue to play a pivotal and leading role in enabling ADNOC’s ambitious production capacity growth plans, underpinned by the core resolutions adopted at the inaugural board meeting post-listing, including the Company’s robust business plan, focused on sustained and enhanced growth. The resolutions will ensure that ADNOC Drilling effectively responds to and delivers against the trust investors are placing in the Company, as well as create additional value for ADNOC Drilling’s shareholders and the UAE.”

ADNOC Drilling continues to drive its growth plans and remains active in a number of mega-tenders in Abu Dhabi, while also actively pursuing the further expansion of its discrete services portfolio and market share in the Oil Field Services (OFS) segment. If awarded, these tenders will expand the Company’s portfolio outside of the Integrated Drilling Services (IDS) segment with awards expected during 2022.

Building on the Company’s increased drilling requirements, with thousands more wells to be drilled by 2030, and as part of the IPO cornerstone investment and strategic drilling alliance announced with Helmerich & Payne (H&P) on 8th September, 2021, two of the eight world-class land rigs are in the UAE and are currently being prepared to start operations in early 2022.

ADNOC successfully completed the IPO of 11% of total issued share capital in ADNOC Drilling on the ADX on 3rd October, 2021. The $1.1 billion offering to qualified international institutional and UAE retail investors, was oversubscribed in excess of 31 times on aggregate. ADNOC Drilling shares rallied 30% on listing day and have traded consistently at that level since, closing at AED2.97 on Thursday, 14th October, 2021 up 29.1% from the IPO offer price, reinforcing continuously strong investor demand.

Following the listing, ADNOC retains an 84% majority-ownership in ADNOC Drilling, with global energy services company Baker Hughes, which entered into a strategic partnership with ADNOC Drilling in October 2018, retaining a 5% share. International contract oil and gas driller Helmerich & Payne (H&P) holds a 1% stake following its IPO cornerstone investment.

Source: Emirates News Agency

October 17, 2021

Etisalat makes great strides in digitalisation of services: Etisalat UAE CEO

ABU DHABI, Masood M Sharif Mahmood, CEO, Etisalat UAE, said that Etisalat has made great strides over the past few decades in the digitalisation of services across different sectors like education, business and entertainment, to drive the UAE’s digital transformation.

The company is actively participating in supporting events in the UAE by providing world-class telco and smart services, to showcase to the world the technological growth that the UAE has achieved, he said in an interview on the sidelines of GITEX Global 2021.

“We are bringing the future of transport, healthcare, retail, education, home entertainment, business, showcasing 5G use cases across these verticals and how innovative solutions can be applied in our environment becoming a digital reality,” he said while providing details on the Etisalat stand at the event.

“The mobility area is a show-stopper every year, giving visitors an insight into the future of autonomous transportation, and in robotics. Many of the transformative technologies will highlight how they can enhance lives of the differently-abled with a wearable robotic exoskeleton while witnessing how humanoid robots interact with visitors and how 5G robotic assistants can support industrial operations with VR capabilities,” he went on to say.

On Etisalat’s participation in Expo 2020 Dubai, he said, “As the official telecom and digital services partner, Etisalat has built a dedicated modern network for Expo 2020 Dubai to meet its exclusive requirements and provide telecom services for the millions of visitors expected from around the world throughout the six-month event.

“Expo 2020 Dubai is Etisalat’s first commercial 5G enterprise customer in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region to access 5G services. The site has more than 700 km of highly resilient and multi-redundant fibre network, which is four times the distance between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Fibre cables will have the ability to provide more bandwidth for carrying more data,” he concluded.

Source: Emirates News Agency

October 17, 2021

Saqr Ghobash receives Huawei Middle East President

ABU DHABI, Saqr Ghobash, Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC), received, at the FNC headquarters in Abu Dhabi, Steven Yi, Regional President, Middle East, Huawei.

At the start of the meeting, Ghobash welcomed Yi and lauded the strong ties between the UAE and China, noting that they will undoubtedly help serve the interests of their peoples.

During the meeting, which was attended by Dr. Omar Al Nuaimi, FNC Secretary-General, the sides discussed the latest global developments in the fields of telecommunications and information technology, as well as the key role of the UAE’s information technology sector and artificial intelligence (AI) utilisation efforts. The meeting also highlighted the innovative initiatives launched by the UAE, in line with the vision and directives of its wise leadership.

Yi lauded the development achieved by the UAE, thanks to its leadership’s futuristic vision and the efficiency of its government, and underscored its keenness to utilise the latest innovations to drive its development.

Huawei leverages the UAE’s tech-related policies, as they help enhance the company’s achievements related to providing comprehensive solutions that will help create the strongest interconnected network in the world. Yi then underlined the importance of the UAE to Huawei as one of the most important markets and international operations hub.

Source: Emirates News Agency