Technology, regulatory and cost factors to drive green transportation developments, say IEAA conference panelists

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index on Sunday lost 101.52 points — or 1 percent — to close at 10,051.78, extending last week’s 3.8 percent fall. 

While MSCI Tadawul 30 Index fell 12.43 points to 1,371.41, the parallel market Nomu dropped 0.79 percent to 18,967.99. 

TASI’s total trading turnover of the benchmark index was SR2.77 billion ($740 million) as 37 stocks of the listed 224 advanced and 179 receded. 

Among sectoral indices, 18 of the 21 listed on the stock exchange declined, while three gained. 

The Diversified Financials Index witnessed heavy selling as the sector shed 204.07 points to 4,057.15. 

Tihama Advertising and Public Relations Co. took the worst hit as its share price plunged 6.81 percent to SR61.60. 

Other prominent losers were Thob Al Aseel Co., Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co., Arabian Cement Co. and Saudi Tadawul Group Holding Co. 

Saudi Tadawul Group Holding Co. reported a 28 percent decline in net profit after zakat and tax to SR424.6 million in 2022 from SR587.7 million in 2021. 

In a statement to the stock exchange, the group said that its operating expenses increased 16.6 percent to SR644.3 million in 2022 due to a rise in salaries and related benefits.  

Operating revenue declined 8.1 percent to SR1.07 billion in 2022 from SR1.16 billion in 2021.  

Earnings per share reduced to SR3.54 in 2022 from SR4.9 in the year-ago period. 

Tadawul Group’s board of directors recommended a 23.1 percent cash dividend, or SR2.31 per share, for 2022, totaling SR277.13 million. Its share price fell 4.7 percent to SR150.20. 

Middle East Healthcare Co., also known as Saudi German Health, on the other hand, was the topmost gainer as its share price shot up 9.96 percent to SR29.80 after its outstanding financial results. 

The company reported a 337 percent surge in 2022 net profit after zakat and tax of SR75.2 million from SR17.2 million in 2021. 

The profit spike was spurred by an increase in the number of patients in outpatient and inpatient clinics, higher revenue due to the revised prices with major customers, accreditation and case mix, and better efficiency due to the ramp-up of new facilities. 

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the healthcare services provider achieved a net profit of SR33.2 million against a net loss of SR18.39 million in the year-ago period. 

Astra Industrial Group’s share prices also jumped 7.68 percent to SR60.30, its highest level since May 2014 

On the announcements front, Saudi Ceramic Co. also reported a decline of 26 percent in net profit to SR173.9 million in 2022 from SR233.8 billion a year earlier. 

The profit decline is attributed to a slight decrease in sales and an increase in the cost of production inputs, affecting profit margins.  

The company reported an 11 percent decline in net profit to SR41.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 from SR47.1 million in the year-ago period. Its share price fell 2 percent to SR29.35. 

On Sunday, the board of National Environmental Recycling Co., also known as Tadweeer, recommended on

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NATO Assessment – Why our values ought to drive our technological innovation possibilities

It is reasonable to say that our romance with technologies is sophisticated.
Just seem at headline topics like renewable power or Artificial Intelligence (AI), or take into consideration prescription drugs, automotive, customer electronics, social media and biotechnology. On the matter of any of these systems, you will practically surely hear a cacophony of voices that selection from promising a new period of pleasure to predicting the doom of humanity.
How can we make sense of these bewildering views, and how can we maximise the benefits of emerging and possibly disruptive technologies although properly minimising their hazards?

As persons, we have quite a few diverse passions in technology. Some are interested in technologies itself, but most are intrigued in the impression know-how could have. These passions are frequently competing, and occasionally downright conflicting. Below is a simplified overview:

  • the consumer is looking for an affordable option to a presented trouble,
    whilst the designer seeks to improve a offered product

  • the innovator strives to display that her thought will perform,
    although the investor is keen on the return on his expenditure

  • the company manager is fully commited to growing his company’s revenue and current market share,
    whereas the regulator focuses on thoughts of

  • the citizen desires to maximise her freedoms and have her legal rights safeguarded,
    though the politician attempts to harmony all the aforementioned interests in devising policies for the profit of all.

This significant entanglement of pursuits features technological thoughts, economic and business passions, societal needs, and political considerations. Most of us, most of the time, go after quite a few of individuals pursuits in parallel: absolutely as shoppers and citizens, but also as people today and members of communities that have an effect on our contemplating and the decisions we make.

None of these issues are predetermined, nor are the resulting choices and decisions. Hence, the collective final result simply cannot be predicted. We simply cannot pre-point out the developmental path of any technological know-how. Nevertheless, it would be hare-brained to conclude that technologies follows a path of its very own or that we have no influence on technological innovation at all. Quite to the contrary, we all affect technologies advancement, only, this affect is rarely immediate or right away seen. The complexity researcher W. Brian Arthur summarised our multi-faceted romance with technology as follows: “Technology regions co-evolve jointly with culture in a approach of mutual adaptation.”

In other terms, our possibilities now have an affect on the trajectory of a given technology’s further advancement. That growth will in convert present new prospects and troubles that we will answer to, and this response will affect the additional evolution of that technologies in an open up-finished course of action.

Take the steam engine for illustration. This device marked the commencing of the Industrial Revolution when it was initial introduced to pump h2o from coalmines. That productive software triggered even more imagination, as developers and consumers alike came to glance for other troubles a steam motor could resolve. People things to

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