Middle East: “Boom Time in UAE to Greatly Assist Impending Roll-out of eVTOL and UAV Markets in Region”

It’s sim­ple. If you want to lead the impend­ing green avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion, the Mid­dle East is the place to be. More and more ana­lysts from the eVTOL indus­try whether it is Ser­gio Cecut­ta, Founder of SMG Con­sult­ing, or Rob Riedel, co-Leader of the McK­in­sey Cen­ter for Future Mobil­i­ty, say the Mid­dle East has the will, the way, the deter­mi­na­tion and above all, the nec­es­sary finance, to make it so. 

Take the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE), for exam­ple.

U.S media out­let, CNBC, who sup­ports the devel­op­ment of the eVTOL indus­try, wrote a fea­ture last month enti­tled: “The UAE is set to be the No.1 Wealth Mag­net in the World.” 

The arti­cle con­tin­ues, “The coun­try is set to lead for the third year in a row as the world’s top des­ti­na­tion for the wealthy, expect­ing to see a record-break­ing inflow of 6,700 mil­lion­aires by year end, accord­ing to The Hen­ley Pri­vate Wealth Migra­tion Report 2024.”

In fact, right across the Mid­dle East region, coun­tries like Sau­di Ara­bia, Qatar and Kuwait are also attract­ing an increas­ing num­ber of rich and pow­er­ful peo­ple. There is a prop­er­ty boom going on in Sau­di Ara­bia, for exam­ple, sup­port­ed by the super-afflu­ent who are pulling their mon­ey out from the declin­ing West and plough­ing it into the ris­ing MidEast. 

Vis­i­tors Min­gle Around the EHang 216‑S AAV dur­ing a recent demon­stra­tion event in Abu Dhabi, UAE (Cred­it: Chi­na Dai­ly)

Mean­while, Abu Dhabi has the fastest grow­ing start­up ecosys­tem in MENA as both young and expe­ri­enced entre­pre­neurs, see the future poten­tial of a region that offers very low crime rates, polit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty, sup­port­ive gov­ern­ing author­i­ties, along­side plen­ty of avail­able invest­ment mon­ey.

The CNBC fea­ture con­tin­ues, “A dis­tant sec­ond to the UAE is the Unit­ed States, with an expect­ed inflow of 3,800 mil­lion­aires by year-end — just about half of the net inflow of migrat­ing mil­lion­aires that the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try antic­i­pates. A record-break­ing 128,000 mil­lion­aires, or high net worth indi­vid­u­als with liq­uid investable wealth of USD1 mil­lionor more, are expect­ed to relo­cate in 2024.”

Dominic Volek, Group Head of Pri­vate Clients at Hen­ley & Part­ners, com­ment­ed, “This great mil­lion­aire migra­tion is a canary in the coal mine, sig­nalling a pro­found shift in the glob­al land­scape and tec­ton­ic plates of wealth and pow­er, with far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions for the future tra­jec­to­ry of the nations they leave behind or those which they make their new home.” 

Adding, “2024 is shap­ing up to be a water­shed moment in the glob­al migra­tion of wealth.” Of course, this “migra­tion of wealth” to the Mid­dle East will great­ly assist the green avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion.

The attrac­tion of the UAE includes favourable tax poli­cies and a strate­gic loca­tion, along­side a world-class infra­struc­ture. The coun­try also offers a “Gold­en Visa” aimed at attract­ing tal­ent to reside there. The visa is aimed at “pro­vid­ing long-term res­i­dence to for­eign investors, entre­pre­neurs, and tal­ent­ed indi­vid­u­als includ­ing spe­cial­ists, stu­dents, and researchers who make a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment to the coun­try,” says the Hen­ley Report.

Volek con­tin­ues, “As the world grap­ples with a per­fect storm of geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty, and social upheaval, mil­lion­aires are vot­ing with their feet in record num­bers, seek­ing green­er pas­tures and safer har­bours for their assets and fam­i­ly inter­ests.”

Inter­est­ing­ly, accord­ing to this Report, Chi­na expects to see the biggest mil­lion­aire exo­dus with a pro­ject­ed 15,200 High Net Worth Indi­vid­u­als (HNWIs) expect­ed to leave the coun­try by year end. The UK comes in sec­ond, with a pro­ject­ed net loss of 9,500 mil­lion­aires, fol­lowed by India, with a poten­tial loss of 4,300 ultra-rich peo­ple. The UK, pre­vi­ous­ly one of the top des­ti­na­tions for the wealthy glob­al­ly, has recent­ly seen a major out­flow of HNWIs.

Joby Avi­a­tion and Muka­malah Sign Agree­ment to Intro­duce Joby’s eVTOLs to Sau­di Ara­bia (Cred­it: Joby Avi­a­tion)

Dr. Han­nah White, Direc­tor and CEO of the inde­pen­dent think tank, ‘The Insti­tute for Gov­ern­ment’, remarked, “The out­flow already gen­er­at­ed by the eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal tur­moil in Britain risks being accel­er­at­ed by fur­ther unwel­come pol­i­cy deci­sions ahead of the elec­tion.”

She con­tin­ued, “Both Chi­na and India are also see­ing high net out­flows because of the recent suc­cess of their economies in gen­er­at­ing new mil­lion­aires, although slow­ing wealth growth in Chi­na in recent years could mean sus­tained loss­es become more dam­ag­ing over time.”

Dr White added, “Indi­an mil­lion­aires often depart the sub-con­ti­nent in search of a bet­ter lifestyle, safer and clean­er envi­ron­ments, and access to more pre­mi­um health and edu­ca­tion ser­vices.”

So, there you have it. If you are able to turn a blind eye to some of the Mid­dle East’s more ques­tion­able cul­tur­al ide­olo­gies, a lot of box­es are ticked, where this increas­ing wealth migra­tion to the region can only boost the eVTOL and car­go drone indus­tries.

(News Source: www.cnbc.com)

(Top image: Archer has struck a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar agree­ment with Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office (ADIO) for lunch­ing a com­mer­cial elec­tric air taxi ser­vice by late 2025 — Cred­it: Archer/ Pankaj Kirdatt/Fast Com­pa­ny Mid­dle East) 

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