MIAMI: The public sector should lead the way in supporting the financial costs of the energy transition, said Samir Assaf, chairman of HSBC Middle East and North Africa.

During the FII conference in Miami, Assaf argued that public institutions around the world should follow the example of the Public Investment Fund, or PIF, the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, when it came to supporting the initial losses that could occur in making these kinds of investments.

“I think that PIF is giving us a great example through the loss of equity investment they are doing in hydrogen or in NEOM,” Assaf said.

“When you think about the reform that is happening, or will happen at the World Bank, the essence of this reform is to make sure that the World Bank is deploying more toward the energy transition and taking more of the primary risk to support (the) financing of this energy transition.

“In my view 60, 70, 75 percent of the risk of the equity should come from the public sector,” he said.

Assaf said that although banks maintained a key position in financing activities aimed at achieving net zero in 2050, “the reality is that we are all in this journey together and everyone is in this role, and I really have a call to public money to come and be the first loss of this transition.”

At the panel, speakers pointed to the urgency of accelerating the transition to green energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and prioritizing more resilient infrastructure in vulnerable communities.

The focus was on low and zero carbon technologies that would drive opportunities for investors, including capturing and removing carbon, carbon neutralization and scaling up solutions such as green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel.

“There’s a lot of money right now that’s positioned to go after technologies that may or may not be able to solve that problem in an adequate way,” said Steve Shallenberger, CEO of environmental technologies company, Rivotto.

“As a collective, we are at a very serious inflection point where we have to make the right decisions” to avoid “putting financial burdens and hand over an Earth that’s not suitable for future generations.”

During the panel discussion, participants also talked about the responsibility of the Global North in financing the transition toward green energy.

The general consensus among speakers was that the deployment of new technologies and the scaling up of those technologies would happen in the north, where the current competence sits, and the deployment of those technologies at scale would happen in the Global South.

The speakers added that the rollout would represent “a very interesting opportunity” for countries in the southern hemisphere to generate long-term attractive returns.

“The R&D (research and development), the proof of concept and the commercial scaling up, that is likely to happen in the North,” said Assaf.

“But the deployment of those technologies at scale is going to happen in the Global South. And that’s where the opportunity is.”

In a separate panel, NEOM’s Deputy CEO Rayan Fayez also stressed the importance of harnessing the opportunity offered by these projects to create long-term sustainable capital, while at the same time creating an impact on the rest of the world.

“It’s a balanced approach between economic development and economic returns, but at the same time creating impact that goes beyond projects like NEOM,” Fayez said. “We’re trying to redefine how businesses coexist with nature.”

“We’re addressing livability challenges and you’ve seen some designs of The Line. What we’re doing is redesigning how people could live better in the future with less infrastructure, with less footprint to occupy, with better proximity, no cars, no CO2 emissions,” he said.

“All of that coming together is creating an ecosystem where we are solving challenges that have existed all around the world but people have not had the chance of having a blank canvas in the way we do, the vision, and the way our chairman does, to recreate it and experiment with it at scale like we are in NEOM.”

KARACHI: Pakistan's ongoing economic crisis, caused by a major dollar liquidity crunch, has doubled the cost of Saudi dates, said local traders on Tuesday, after the country lost much of its own crops in the wake of the monsoon floods that destroyed farmlands in the southern region of Sindh and Balochistan last year.

Saudi dates are a much-loved culinary treasure for Pakistani elites in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Traditionally, the prices of these dates remain high in the local market due to their quality. They are also the top choice of affluent classes in Pakistan.

Ajwa, Ambar, Safwai, Sukkari, Barhi, Saghai, Kalmi, Khudri, Kholas and Medjoul are the most famous Saudi dates sold in Pakistan. However, local traders say the prices of Saudi dates had doubled while the sales had reduced this year.

“Last year, the rate of Sukkari dates was Rs1,100 per kilogram,” Sher Zaman Khan, a local dealer, told Arab News on Tuesday. “This year, it rate has increased to Rs2,200. The rate of Kalmi dates stood at Rs900 but it has gone up between Rs1,700 and Rs1,800. Last year, the cost of Ambar date were Rs1,400 but they are sold for Rs2,800 this year.”

With an annual production of around 1.1 million tons, Saudi Arabia is one of the top producers and exporters of dates. Pakistan, which is also among the world's top 10 date producers with about 500,000 tons of annual yield, meets half of its demand through imports, mainly in the holy month of Ramadan.

Dealers said the quantity of Saudi dates had substantially declined in Pakistani market due to restrictions on imports, coupled with the widespread devastation caused by last year's floods in the dates growing areas of Sindh and Balochistan.

“The demand for Saudi dates has declined because of the diminishing purchasing power of people,” Hanif Baloch, an importer and dealer of the fruit, told Arab News. “Even those belonging to high income classes have started thinking before buying.”

Another importer, Haji Abubaker, who used to travel to Saudi Arabia to personally pick up Arabian dates right from the farms in the kingdom, said he could not import dates this year due to government-imposed restrictions.

Pakistan decided to restrict its imports in recent months to prevent the outflow of dollars by slowing down cargo clearance from ports. The banks operating in the country also started delaying or denying opening letters of credit (LCs).

“We were expecting that there would be a shortage of dates during Ramadan after the domestic crop loss and lack of LCs, but this was compensated by the high prices which subdued the demand,” Muhammad Sabir, chairman of Khajoor Market Association, said.

Pakistani farmers said last year's devastating rains had left nothing of the domestically produced dates for Ramadan consumption.

“In Sindh, dates are cultivated on 105,000 acres of land, of which the fruit was ready at 98,000 acres,” Nabi Bux Sathio, senior vice president of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, told Arab News. “The fruit was manually picked up and placed on the ground to dry, but rains ruined it, leaving nothing for this Ramadan.”

Despite the reduced sales and production cuts, Pakistanis will still be able to taste Saudi dates after the kingdom presented 100 tons of its produce to the South Asian country.

The Saudi envoy to Pakistan, Nawaf bin Said Al-Malki, and the director of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, Dr Khalid M. Al-Othmani, handed over the fruit to Pakistan for distribution in the country.