Abu Dhabi is targeting growing its non-oil GDP by up to 8 per cent over the next 20 years by developing sectors such as education, healthcare and logistics, an Abu Dhabi official said at the NBAD Global Financial Markets Forum.
“We are on track of driving non-oil economic growth between 6 and 8 per cent for the next 20 years,” said Khalifa Salem Al Mansouri, undersecretary of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Economic Development.
“We are not in a panic mood in looking at oil as the primary driver of growth.”
He said oil’s contribution to GDP has increased from less than 40 per cent in 2008 to around 50 per cent in 2014, he said.
According to the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, the non-oil sector is expected to contribute 64 per cent of GDP by 2030.
The UAE economy is the most diversified in the Arabian Gulf region, with oil and gas contributing to less than 40 per cent of the economy.
The Institute of International Finance (IIF) expects the UAE’s growth this year to come in below IMF forecasts and post a wider deficit because of lower spending and low oil prices.
The UAE economy is forecast to grow at 2.5 per cent this year and post a fiscal deficit of 8 per cent, according to the IIF.
The IMF, however, had UAE’s growth for 2016 at 2.6 per cent, a cut of 0.5 percentage point compared with its October projection of 3.1 per cent growth.
dalsaadi@thenational.ae
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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