Apr 01 2020 18 mins
Message to All IMA Stakeholders: From Jeff Thomson, IMA CEO, on the Coronavirus:
https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/news-and-media-relations/newsletters/inside-ima/2020/3/5/message-to-all-ima-stakeholders-from-jeff-thomson-on-the-coronavirus
IMA Middle East-Africa Website: https://imamiddleeast.org/en/
IMA India Website: https://www.imanet.org/?SelectedRegion={9153947C-B543-4A34-AF21-8FFD7D42D81E}
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:00)
Welcome back for a very special episode of Count Me In. I am your host, Adam Larson and I'm excited to announce Mitch and I will have a new cohost on the series, Rouba Zeidan. Rouba is the communications manager for the middle East and India out of IMA's Dubai office. She'll be joining our Count Me In team to bring you more global perspectives on accounting and finance by featuring inspirational stories and expert guests from the region and to welcome Rouba to the series. I'm happy to bring you right up to our first conversation today. Rouba spoke with Ima, senior director for middle East Africa and India operations Hanadi Khalife. They discussed the timely issues relating to COVID-19 in the region and all the internal and external developments being implemented to safeguard human life and business continuity. Please join me in welcoming Rouba to the team and a special thanks to Hanadi for this insight as we head over to their conversation now.
Rouba: (01:00)
So we're going through a globally challenging period. I mean with IMA's regional offices based in the United Arab Emirates, I mean Dubai to be more specific. Can you tell us a little bit about how this region is coping with the situation and then what are some of the highlights of government level initiatives being taken? Surely Middle East and India as you may?
Hanadi: (01:21)
Yeah, I think, I mean Rouba and I, you know, we're fortunate to have visionary leaders in the UAE who are shaping the future of this nation and the most progressive, yet very embracing way to ensure not only the wellbeing, but also the happiness. You know, we have a happiness minister of its citizens as well as the economist perspective of the country and the way the country has been managing the Covid 19 outbreak. It's no different. It's really commendable, I think how the country is mobilized to find the rights of the virus, the establishment of additional test centers, including drive-through ones, mass disinfection of roads and public transportation and the creation of public awareness campaigns. And I'm really particularly impressed with the recent ad campaign, because it wasn't aimed only at the awareness, but also at, you know, uplifting spirit and encouraging people to take the time to reflect and not to panic. This, of course has resulted in a full alignment, solidarity and commitment from the people to follow, really thought only the government directives. At the end of the day they are aimed at flattening the curve as quickly as possible, I hold back to a business as usual for the benefit of all stakeholders, especially the most vulnerable ones. Now on the regional level, the regulators and policy makers have also been very busy in all the GCC countries and they're proactively taking measures in order to reduce the negative economic impact of the Virus outbreak. Be it on the households, on businesses and the financial markets with seeing the rolling out of stimulus measures that help maintain households economic welfare. And I hope we see additional initiatives, that will be implemented similar to the Denmark government initiative. The largest two Arab economies are Saudi Arabia. Yeah. The United Arab Emirates have also launched stimulus packages aimed to support companies in the sectors that are more hardly hit like the tourism, the retail and the trade sectors. The central banks have also focused on assisting, SMEs. As you know, SMEs constitute more than 75% of companies in the region. So there are defending loan repayments, reducing, waving, processing and service fees, in addition to reducing interest charges and minimum balances requirements. Now, despite the current low oil prices, the UAE economic stimulus has a consolidated package valued at 126 billion. This is approximately 34 billion, while is why Saudi Arabia is worth 32 billion. Also the policy makers are supporting obviously the money market. For example, they recently the reduced, the overnight lending rate from 4% to 2.45%. I know you asked us about India because India is also a part of our market here. So India has entered stage three after the pandemic, right? Today, I think we're on day five of the nationwide lockdown. And, they're saying like the next 72 hours are extremely crucial to monitor if the infection will explode. The covenant that also has been proactive. They created essential relief funds. The health ministry inaugurated 24, seven national telemedicine and there are also 28 hospitals of Indian armed forces that are now reserved for covered patients.
Rouba: (05:17)
Amazing initiatives. I mean it's, it's wonderful to see how aggressive and fast governments are reacting. It is certainly reassuring. So as I mean, as a leader in this region, you've obviously had to take some decisions, some difficult decisions yourself to ensure that, you know, the business continues and then your staff are safe. I being one of them can bear with how well you've managed this fire, but what have been some of your guiding principles during this really difficult time?
Hanadi: (05:49)
You know, as a member based not-for-profit organization at IMA, it has always been a purpose before profit. So before any decisions we consider the impact on our employees, on our members, CMA candidates on our supply chain and of course more broadly our value chain. So business continuity is about sustainability to us and not short term gains. And the tone at the top was very clear, and that was communicated from day one by our president and CEO Jeff Thompson. It's really about the safety and health of employees. This is the number one priority as well as abiding by the instructions and measures, that I would expect the government had put in place. This directives really cascaded to regions and guided our decisions. So we all have to act now on our social responsibility duties and we have an obligation to contribute and containing the Virus. I mean it's really spreading like wildfire and play our role and flattening the curve. The earlier we control the spread of the virus. The earlier the economic activities where the earlier we can say businesses from shutting down, the more we can save God the wellbeing of the people and the welfare of the societies we live in.
Rouba: (07:13)
So would you say the IMA network globally is still fully operational, conference calling and systems? Everything was put in place. How soon into this crisis? All mobilized?
Hanadi: (07:25)
You know, it was really from day one and you would have expect a business to slow down, but the whole team globally is probably busier than average. We are all very connected every day engaged. So it, eally has, we started, we didn't waste time. We started from day one. We took it seriously. I mean I thi...