"The REUTERS-AUD Trading Room" inauguration at The American University in Dubai

This inauguration comes pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding signed between AUD and Reuters that has the objective of exploring the prospects of working together towards establishing a relationship to benefit from each other's expertise.

Mr Ahamd Bin Bayat, CEO of TECOM was present at this ceremony in addition to top officials from both organizations including Mr Jean Marc Paufique, Managing Director of Reuters Middle East & Africa and Mr Tehsin Asghar, Manager- Client Training. AUD was represented by Mr Elias Bou Saab, Vice President, and Dr Jihad Nader, Provost and Chief Academic Officer. A huge crowd of AUD Business faculty and students attended this important event.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Reuters will provide access (3000 Xtra) to feed, individual terminals at AUD, in addition to a screen that will allow all of the AUD student body and faculty to monitor financial markets performance and movements.

By switching on a Reuters' screen, students will have access to real time and historical market data on currencies, commodities, equities, fixed income securities, derivatives (such as Options, Interest Rate Swaps, Futures) and other financial data and news.

It will also allow them to understand the mechanism of trades, to structure and price complex products (such as options), to simulate strategies (such as Interest Rate Swaps, synthetic positions, hedging and other sophisticated models), and to analyze the financial data so that it can be effectively used in the decision making process.

In addition to that they will have access to a diversified set of models that form a series of sophisticated and easy-to-use screens and calculators that complement the study tools and spreadsheets used at AUD.

Faculty members will, in addition to the great advantage of guiding their students through the real life application of the principles acquired through classroom studies, also benefit from this facility for their own research.

Students and faculty will receive an initial training session delivered by Reuters personnel. This training process is an integral part of the instruction that AUD envisions for its Finance students.

AUD, on the other hand will extend the expertise of its faculty to develop the level of knowledge among Reuters staff, either by instructing Reuters members inside AUD classrooms or by addressing certain events on financial markets or related technology issues.

Both parties will also undertake to co-operate in organizing joint events, seminars, workshops for the benefit of the financial community.

Dr Lance de Masi, AUD President, said: "Throughout this year of 10th anniversary celebrations, what amazes me most about AUD is the practical value of its degrees. The dealing room reflects Reuter's commitment to bringing real-world experience into the learning environment. We are indeed grateful for this contribution. The Reuter's dealing room is an opportunity to add excitement, relevance and usefulness to business education at AUD."