Business

Sunday, December 28, 2025 | Daily Newspaper published by GPPC Doha, Qatar.

Business

Gulf Times

QNB Group enhances brand with new Sonic sound identity

QNB Group announced the launch of its first-ever sonic identity, marking a new milestone in the bank’s brand evolution and customer engagement journey.Developed in collaboration with Sixième Son, a global leader in sonic branding, the new musical identity is rooted in QNB’s brand persona, The Sage, a symbol of wisdom, vision, and unwavering trust. More than just music, this new sonic expression embodies QNB’s commitment to innovation, inspiration, and forward-thinking.The sonic identity blends traditional musical instruments, such as the oud, with modern synthesizers, creating a soundscape that feels both familiar and progressive. It mirrors QNB’s ambition to honor its heritage while shaping the future, delivering a musical crescendo that evokes empowerment, unity, innovation, and progress.This new identity captures QNB’s dual spirit, locally rooted and globally confident. It draws inspiration from the brand’s visual identity and strategic direction, offering a dynamic expression of QNB’s purpose: to build bridges between markets, people, and opportunities.The sonic identity will be integrated across all major QNB brand touchpoints, including the mobile app, digital platforms, branch environments, and customer events. Adaptations and variations will ensure a consistent yet versatile audio presence, enhancing customer experiences and emotional resonance. It expresses QNB’s values with depth and emotion, positioning the brand as a trusted voice in local and global finance.The QNB sonic identity is a powerful fusion of tradition and innovation, reflecting the bank’s unwavering commitment to excellence. Designed to resonate with the core values of QNB, the new sound identity embodies QNB Group’s vision, fuels its aspirations for growth, and amplifies its sense of empowerment. With every note, it reinforces QNB’s presence and purpose, ensuring QNB is not just seen, but heard and remembered.It marks a milestone for Sixième Son, which has expanded its footprint in the Middle East, bringing its expertise to some of the region’s most influential brands. By harnessing cross-collaboration across its global teams from Asia to Europe and the Middle East, the company brought its local market knowledge and expertise to deliver unified, world-class solutions to its clients, wherever they are.

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Return of cheaper gas hasn’t solved industrial crisis in Europe

Natural gas prices in Europe have fallen close to levels not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That should be a tonic for the continent’s battered manufacturers, but may be coming too late.Years of elevated costs have hollowed out parts of Europe’s industrial core, and even the lowest seasonal gas prices since 2020 aren’t enough to reopen shuttered factories. The continent’s surviving businesses are contending with many new problems that cheaper energy alone can’t solve.“If you have made the decision to move production elsewhere, or move to a lower cost jurisdiction, you’re not automatically gonna move back just because of short-term changes in energy prices,” said Raoul Ruparel, director of Boston Consulting Group’s Centre for Growth. “Particularly when there are wider structural challenges around European competitiveness.”Competition from the US and China has intensified, with President Donald Trump’s new tariffs further blunting Europe’s export edge on goods ranging from Porsche 911s to aluminium. Heavy industries like steel and chemicals, which benefit most from lower energy costs, face global surpluses for their products and the rising cost of emissions regulations at home.Europe still “has a real problem” with investment and innovation, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon.Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent halt of most Russian pipeline supply to Europe pushed benchmark gas prices up from €20 ($23) a megawatt-hour at the start of 2021 to as high as €345 in 2022. The surge in costs made the region uncompetitive on a global scale, forcing industries to restructure supply chains and adjust operations just to stay in business.In chemicals, top producer BASF SE began in September 2024 to shut some units in Germany, while also boosting investments in China. In July, Dow Inc announced the closure of three of its most energy-intensive European plants next year.Despite the recent gas price decrease, the company said its structural challenges have either persisted or intensified since.Recently, Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel GmbH said it would temporarily shutter two plants in Germany and France, the latter of which will only return at half capacity. The company blamed the move on a flood of imports priced below the European Union’s average production costs.Mass InsolvenciesMany companies found their cost-cutting efforts weren’t enough. In Western Europe alone, corporate insolvencies hit a total of 190,449 last year, the highest in over a decade, according to Creditreform, a creditors’ protection association. Energy prices were cited as a key reason for the trend.The loss of so many industrial consumers means Europe’s underlying demand remains weak even with current benchmark gas prices of about €27 a megawatt-hour. Consumption is about 20% lower than pre-war levels, according to RBC Capital Markets.The global competitiveness of some of Europe’s biggest economies, including the UK and Germany, hasn’t fully recovered from the crisis and lags the US and China, according to rankings from the International Institute for Management Development. This is evident in an industrial park an hour east of Munich, home to chemical makers such as Clariant AG and Westlake Vinnolit GmbH.Even after the fall in gas prices, Germany’s chemical plants operated at just 70% capacity so far in 2025, the weakest level in 20 years. Manufacturers are still paying about three times more than their rivals in the US, said Tilo Rosenberger-Sub, a spokesman for the site’s operator InfraServ Gendorf. They also face the extra cost of carbon allowances, which are as much as five times more expensive than in other countries.“It’s not the price trend over time that matters, but rather the comparison with other regions,” Rosenberger-Sub said. “That’s precisely the benchmark for competitiveness.”Increased reliance on overseas imports of liquefied natural gas makes this an intractable problem. LNG accounted for 45% of the EU’s imports at the start of this year, compared with about 20% before the war.