Two-thirds of Arab Youth Survey respondents cited the UAE as the most desirable place to live
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A country’s citizens moving towards or away from it is the “biggest and most sincere” vote of the success strategies, the UAE Vice-President has said.
“This is my message to all government,” His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted on Wednesday.
The tweets came after the 14th annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey found that nearly two-thirds of 3,400 young Arabs polled across the Middle East and North Africa listed the UAE as the most desirable place to live in. The country outranked the United States, Canada, France, and Germany.
For the 11th year running, the UAE is also the country most young Arabs want their own to be like.
Sheikh Mohammed referred to the survey’s finding that more than half of the Arab youth believe their countries’ economy is not going in the right direction. “45 per cent of respondents confirmed that they are trying to or seriously considering emigrating from their countries. Economy is above all and it is everything,” he added.
According to the research, the top five attractions of the UAE are its growing economy (27 per cent), its safe and secure environment (26 per cent), its generous salary packages and the wide range of work opportunities it provides (both cited by 22 per cent of interviewees), and the country’s effective leadership (17 per cent).
The UAE’s respect for the region’s cultural traditions, the quality of its education system, the ease of starting a business, and the UAE’s low taxes were other attractions.
The annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey is the largest study of its kind of the Arab world’s youth. This year’s edition explores the hopes, fears and aspirations of young Arabs in 50 cities in 17 states in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The face-to-face interviews were conducted by professional interviewers from May 13 to June 16, 2022, covering 3,400 young Arabs aged 18 to 24. The cohort was split equally between men and women. The survey covers five Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia), the Levant region (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Syria) and Yemen.
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