BONUS | Hanadi Khalife - Business Continuity in the Middle East & India (with Rouba Zeidan)

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...