UAE to create a new task force for digital economy

Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, the UAE’s Minister of Economy. File photo

Dubai - Minister urges government and business leaders need to think beyond pandemic to a digitally-enabled economy.

Waheed Abbas

Published: Tue 19 Oct 2021, 7:40 PM

The UAE will set up a task force to create a next-generation economy structure for 2050-2060, said Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, the UAE’s Minister of Economy.

He said that government and business leaders need to think beyond the pandemic to a digitally-enabled economy driven by imagination.

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Al Marri said that talent would fuel the future economy and that the UAE had demonstrated its resilience and promise by delivering a 13 per cent increase in exports in 2020 compared to 2019, despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Minister confirmed that key B2B cross-national discussions are taking place at Expo 2020 Dubai with digitalisation, diversification and tourism dominating agendas.

He said new regulations introduced during the pandemic such as 100 per cent foreign ownership, decriminalization of cheques and anti-money laundering laws were vital to help the country ride out of the crisis and attract higher foreign direct investment flow.

“Not just the UAE, the whole global economy is looking at pre-Covid and post-Covid economy. We are looking at digitalisation as an enabler,” he said during the Gitex Global at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Al Qasim, executive director, of the space sector at UAE Space Agency, said the next space race would be fought by the private sector, with governments providing investment and regulations to mitigate risks and enable critical innovation.

He said the UAE Government is looking to the private sector to contribute 50 per cent to the upstream development of its 2030 mission to explore Venus and the Asteroid Belt.

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com