Rising geopolitical tensions involving Iran are making global markets increasingly sensitive to oil prices, inflation and interest rate expectations, according to Lale Akoner, global market analyst at eToro. While the escalation introduces additional uncertainty, she noted that the broader investment case for equities in 2026 remains intact, although the outlook is becoming more closely tied to macroeconomic developments.

Akoner said higher energy prices could prolong inflationary pressures, potentially influencing expectations around monetary policy and the timing of interest rate adjustments.

“The recent Iran escalation has not overturned the broader 2026 case for equities, but it has made that outlook much more dependent on oil, inflation and interest rates,” said Akoner. “If higher energy prices keep inflation stickier for longer, the main risk is likely to come through valuations rather than earnings, as markets scale back expectations for rate cuts and multiples come under pressure. That is why the focus has shifted from the geopolitical headlines themselves to whether they result in tighter financial conditions.”

Despite the geopolitical uncertainty, US markets have remained relatively resilient, reflecting typical investor behaviour during periods of volatility when capital tends to flow toward deeper and more liquid markets.

“At the same time, US markets have shown relative resilience, which is consistent with how investors typically behave in periods of uncertainty,” Akoner added. “In more volatile conditions, capital often moves toward the depth and liquidity of US assets, and that is also supporting the dollar. For now, the dollar move still looks like a classic safety bid, but if investors continue to favour cash and Treasuries, it could become a more durable upswing rather than a short-term spike.”

A stronger US dollar, combined with greater volatility in oil markets, could also create challenges for emerging markets that previously benefited from expectations of a softer dollar and more accommodative monetary policy.

“That matters because a firmer dollar and higher oil volatility create a more difficult backdrop for the parts of the market that had been benefiting from softer-dollar and easier-policy assumptions, particularly emerging markets,” Akoner explained. “It also means the Fed may need to remain more cautious, even if the broader direction of policy still points to eventual easing.”

While the longer-term outlook for equities remains constructive, Akoner emphasised that investors are now paying closer attention to movements in oil prices, interest rates and the strength of the US dollar.

“So the long-equities thesis is still intact, but it is now far more sensitive to oil, rates and the dollar than it was just a few weeks ago,” she concluded.

Read more: Markets rebound as Trump says Iran war could be “over soon”

Dubai has introduced sweeping new regulations aimed at strengthening the safety, quality and sustainability of buildings across the emirate.

In his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, has issued Law No. (3) of 2026 on the quality and safety of buildings in the emirate.

The legislation applies to all buildings throughout Dubai, including those located in private development zones and free zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre, regardless of whether the structures were built before or after the law’s enactment, a Dubai Media office report said.

Read more-A temporary pause: How Dubai’s property market is navigating recent tensions

Officials say the move reflects Dubai’s ongoing efforts to maintain high standards of construction and protect residents, tenants and investors in one of the world’s fastest-growing urban environments.

Focus on safety, sustainability and maintenance

The newly issued law is designed to ensure that buildings across the emirate remain structurally sound, safe for occupants and properly maintained throughout their lifecycle.

According to the provisions of the law, the regulation aims to maintain structural integrity, support regular maintenance and ensure the safe operation of building systems. It also seeks to enhance the comfort of occupants while reducing potential accidents and risks.

Authorities say the measure will also help safeguard lives and property while preserving the architectural and urban identity of Dubai.

Dubai Municipality to lead implementation

Dubai Municipality will play a central role in enforcing the new law and overseeing building safety standards across the emirate.

Under the legislation, the municipality is tasked with developing a digital system to manage building safety and quality requirements. The authority will also maintain a unified database of buildings across Dubai and carry out regular inspections and assessments.

Officials said the municipality will establish sustainability standards, monitor maintenance practices and introduce procedures designed to protect buildings and the people who use them.

In addition, Dubai Municipality will oversee the investigation of building-related incidents, apply corrective measures where needed and encourage the adoption of modern construction technologies.

The authority will also regulate building materials and manage a digital portal that will handle building safety processes and documentation.

The law clearly outlines the responsibilities of authorities supervising construction and building safety across Dubai.

These include Dubai Municipality as well as authorities responsible for overseeing private development zones and free zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre.

A key provision of the law requires buildings to obtain a Quality and Safety Certificate. This certificate will only be issued after a licensed engineering office or firm conducts a comprehensive inspection of the building and evaluates its structural and technical condition.

The inspection must be carried out in accordance with the law’s provisions and the relevant procedures set by authorities.

Responsibilities for building owners

The legislation places significant responsibility on building owners to maintain safe and compliant properties.

According to the law, the owner of a building, including unit owners under Law No. (6) of 2019 on Joint Property Ownership in Dubai, must obtain a Quality and Safety Certificate once construction is complete.

Owners are also required to address any defects or issues identified during inspections and comply with procedures set by the relevant authority. Building owners must hire a licensed engineering office to assess their properties and prepare a technical report that forms part of the certification process.

They are also required to carry out regular maintenance for buildings that are less than 20 years old and fix any issues that could threaten structural safety or endanger lives, property or neighboring buildings.

Authorities must be allowed to conduct inspections when necessary, and owners must ensure that repair work can be carried out when required. Even after obtaining a Quality and Safety Certificate, building owners remain responsible for continuing regular maintenance.

The law also outlines the responsibilities of building management companies and engineering offices while establishing clear rules governing inspections conducted by authorities.

Certificate validity and renewal

The validity period of the Quality and Safety Certificate depends on the age of the building.

For buildings that are less than 40 years old, the certificate will remain valid for 10 years from the date of the building’s completion certificate.

For buildings that are 40 years old or older, the certificate will be valid for five years. Certificates can be renewed for similar periods. However, the conditions and procedures for renewal will be determined by a decision issued by the chairman of the executive council of Dubai (TEC).

The law also addresses situations where buildings are approved for demolition.

In such cases, the rules governing tenant eviction outlined in Law No. (26) of 2007 on Regulating the Relationship between Landlords and Tenants in Dubai and its amendments will apply. Tenants who vacate a building under these circumstances will have priority to return once reconstruction, maintenance or repair work is completed.

They will also be allowed to return at the same rental value stated in their original lease agreement unless both parties agree to different terms.

Heavy fines for violations

The law introduces strict penalties for individuals or entities that violate its provisions.

Violators may face fines ranging from Dhs100 to Dhs1,000,000. Repeat violations committed within two years could lead to fines being doubled, with penalties reaching up to Dhs2,000,000. Authorities may also impose administrative measures, including suspending building permits or halting transactions and approvals related to the property.

This includes procedures involving government and private entities, including the Dubai Land Department. Lease certification for units in the affected building may also be suspended until violations are resolved.

Officials stressed that administrative penalties or fines do not prevent authorities from pursuing civil or criminal accountability where applicable.

Engineering offices and contractors will remain responsible for fulfilling their legal obligations under the law. Individuals affected by decisions or actions taken under the law will have the right to appeal.

The legislation allows those subject to a decision or measure to submit a written appeal to the municipality’s director general or the relevant authority within 30 days of notification.

A dedicated committee will review the appeal and issue a decision within 30 days. The committee’s ruling will be final. Authorities implementing the law may also request assistance from government bodies, including the police, which must provide support when needed.

One-year compliance period

Building owners, contractors and engineering offices will have one year from the law’s effective date to comply with its provisions.

The chairman of the executive council of Dubai may extend this deadline if necessary. Meanwhile, the Director General of Dubai Municipality or the relevant authority will issue decisions required to implement the law, except for matters reserved for the chairman of TEC.

Any provisions in other laws that conflict with this legislation will be annulled.

The law will be published in the Official Gazette and will take effect 60 days after publication.

Dubai has done it yet again. The emirate has retained its position as the world’s cleanest city for a sixth consecutive year, according to results linked to the Global Power City Index published by the Mori Memorial Foundation.

Dubai recorded a 100 per cent satisfaction score in the city cleanliness indicator under the environment pillar of the index, which evaluates major global cities across six functions: economy, research and development, cultural interaction, liveability, environment and accessibility.

Officials said the ranking reflects coordinated efforts between government agencies, the private sector and residents to maintain sanitation standards across the city.

Dubai Municipality’s efforts ensure circular economy practices

Dubai Municipality manages a round-the-clock cleanliness system supported by a fleet of 785 specialised vehicles and equipment, more than 23,300 waste storage and collection units and nearly 3,200 personnel, including sanitation engineers, supervisors and inspectors.

The system covers approximately 2,400 kilometres of main roads and highways, 1,419 kilometres of investment zones, and about 33.4 kilometres of water canals, in addition to residential communities, industrial areas, markets, and beaches.

Dubai’s waste management efforts are also linked to the emirate’s broader sustainability policies, including the Dubai Integrated Waste Management Strategy 2041, which aims to reduce waste generation, divert waste from landfill and expand circular economy practices.

Marwan Ahmed bin Ghalita, director general of Dubai Municipality, said the ranking reflected long-term planning and collaboration across sectors.

“Dubai’s continued global leadership as the world’s cleanest city reflects a clear vision supported by sustained institutional efforts and strong partnership between government entities, the private sector and the community,” he said.

The municipality also operates the Warsan Waste-to-Energy Centre, one of the world’s largest waste-to-energy plants, alongside recycling programmes and digital monitoring systems to improve waste collection and environmental management across the emirate.

For decades, the story of logistics in the UAE has been written on roads. Trucks have carried the weight of our industrial growth – from ports to factories, from warehouses to construction sites. That system has served the nation well.

But as we enter a more competitive, more complex phase of economic growth, the question is no longer whether road freight works. It is whether it works well enough for what comes next.

Across global supply chains, the winners are those who move goods most predictably, most efficiently, and most intelligently. Reliability has become the new currency of logistics. And that is where rail comes into its own.

Building a national freight railway from scratch in the UAE was never a small undertaking. It required laying nearly 900 kilometres of track across desert, mountains and urban corridors. It required regulatory frameworks, safety systems, signalling integration, and industrial alignment – all created in parallel with operations.

In other words, it was not an incremental upgrade on an existing system or systems. It was the construction of an entirely new logistics backbone.

The result is a bespoke system designed not as an alternative to road freight, but as a deliberate strategic upgrade – built for scale, certainty and long-term industrial competitiveness.

Business leaders across heavy industry understand one truth better than most: unpredictability is expensive. Delays ripple through production schedules. Congestion disrupts just-in-time delivery. Driver shortages and fuel volatility add friction to models never designed for today’s volumes.

Rail addresses those pressures at their root.

Freight network supports manufacturers

Each freight train on the UAE network can carry the equivalent of up to 300 heavy trucks, moving on fixed schedules, on dedicated corridors, unaffected by peak-hour congestion or road incidents. That consistency allows manufacturers to plan production with confidence, ports to reduce dwell times, and logistics operators to offer customers something increasingly rare: certainty.

Since its inception, Etihad Rail has moved more than 80 million tonnes of bulk cargo, including over 16 million tonnes in the last year alone – supporting sectors such as aggregates, construction materials, petrochemicals, cement, steel and containerised trade.

These are not marginal industries. They are the backbone of the UAE’s industrial economy.

Rail’s economic impact extends far beyond transport.

Global evidence consistently shows that freight rail networks stimulate productivity growth by lowering input costs, reducing supply chain friction, and increasing export competitiveness.

Studies from Oxford Economics, for example, indicate that rail investment delivers strong multiplier effects – supporting jobs across construction, manufacturing, logistics and downstream industries, often generating several dirhams in wider economic output for every dirham invested.

In the UAE context, the opportunities are particularly significant across construction and building materials, petrochemicals and energy, metals and heavy manufacturing, ports and re-export trade, and cross-border logistics into the wider GCC.

And that cross-border dimension matters.

As the UAE strengthens connectivity and integrates further into GCC supply chains, rail becomes not just a domestic asset, as it is today, but also a regional strategic corridor. It shortens inland transit times, strengthens trade resilience, and positions the UAE as a logistics platform for wider regional growth.

The upcoming launch of passenger rail complements this freight backbone in important ways.

Passenger services are key to inter-emirate connectivity

Passenger services reinforce network utilisation, deepen public familiarity with rail infrastructure, and strengthen inter-emirate connectivity – creating a truly national rail culture. Together, freight and passenger services form a unified transport ecosystem that connects industry, communities and markets.

Scale is where rail’s structural advantage becomes clear.

As industrial output grows, adding more trucks increases congestion, road maintenance pressure and operational risk. Rail scales differently. Adding one additional train dramatically increases capacity without increasing traffic complexity.

For heavy industry, scalability is the difference between sustainable growth and structural bottlenecks.

The economics follow.

Rail reduces per-tonne transport costs over medium and long distances, particularly for high-volume and bulk cargo. It stabilises operating expenses and lowers exposure to volatility. Over time, these efficiencies compound – strengthening the competitiveness of individual firms and the resilience of the broader industrial ecosystem.

It’s important to say that rail is not here to replace road freight. It is here to liberate it. Because when long-haul and bulk movements shift to rail, trucks are freed to focus on flexible, last-mile delivery. Each mode operates where it performs best. The system becomes balanced rather than strained. And this is how leading industrial economies operate. Rail forms the backbone; road provides agility at the edges.

The next chapter of the UAE’s industrial story

My message is that the UAE has now built that backbone, so the next chapter is utilisation at scale.

Those who integrate rail into their logistics strategy today gain reliability, resilience and regional reach. They align themselves with infrastructure designed to support industrial growth for decades, not quarters.

The railway is operational. It is proven. And it is ready to carry the next phase of the UAE’s industrial story.

The writer is the CEO at Etihad Rail Freight.

Renault plans to sell half of its Renault brand cars overseas by 2030 and grow volumes by over a fifth, it said as it unveiled a five-year strategy aimed at remaining competitive in a tough global market.

The French automaker is facing intensifying competition from low-cost Chinese players including BYD and Chery as well as traditional rivals like Stellantis in its key European market, creating mounting price pressure that has eroded profit margins.

Renault, the smallest of the legacy carmakers, said it would rely largely on in-house technology to develop competitive European products. And it will lean on partners like China’s Geely to significantly boost its international sales in South America and South Korea.

Renault plans 36 new models in the next five years, including 14 outside Europe, compared with just eight in the previous five years.

It aims to sell more than 2 million Renault-brand vehicles per year by 2030, up 23 per cent from 1.63 million cars sold in 2025. Half of those it aims to sell outside Europe versus 38 per cent last year.

“We will show that we are here for the long term and we will become the benchmark for the European automotive industry on the global stage,” CEO Francois Provost, who has led the automaker since last year, said in a statement.

Renault is in better shape than five years ago, when heavy losses forced it to retreat from several overseas markets and cut thousands of jobs.

But competition is heating up. And a pullback in support for electric vehicles in the United States under the Trump administration has triggered huge writedowns and abrupt strategic reversals at some rivals.

Renault, which has no US or Chinese presence, said it will continue to develop EVs, planning 16 pure electric models by 2030, or 44 per cent of its planned models. It will also use its Horse Powertrain joint venture with Geely to develop a smaller engine for hybrids. Renault has leaned on hybrids to manage weaker-than-expected European EV demand.

A new EV platform under development for 2028 will include a range-extender version with a backup gasoline engine to extend range to up to 1,400 km (870 miles).

The automaker will unveil the Bridger, a small SUV for the Indian market, at its research-and-development centre outside Paris later on Tuesday alongside the Dacia Striker, a crossover estate to compete with the Volkswagen Group’s Skoda Octavia.