Dubai: More than 200 international insolvency and restructuring experts will gather in Dubai next month for Insol International's 2010 annual regional conference. Insol is a global group of national associations which includes thousands of professionals who specialise in turnaround and insolvency issues.
The conference, which will take place at Madinat Jumeirah from February 21 to 23, will serve as a platform to discuss the reform of insolvency laws and practices in the region.
It will be held under the co-chairmanship of Dr Nasser Al Saidi, Chief Economist of the DIFC Authority and Executive Director of the Hawkamah Institute for Corporate Governance, and Peter Spratt of PricewaterhouseCoopers in London.
Hawkamah recently released a survey on the insolvency systems in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), region in cooperation with the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and INSOL International.
Trapped
The survey revealed there is a wide gap between the insolvency systems in the Mena region compared to best international practice, Al Saidi said.
Over the past five years a lot of effort has been made on lowering the cost of starting a business.
"However, when you're looking at an economic system and corporations, we need to deal not only with entry, but we also need to deal with exit," he said.
The survey report shows it takes three and a half years to close a business in the Mena region, compared to a little over three months to go through insolvency proceedings in Ireland, for example.
"Without an exit law, no investor would really want to invest in an economy and get trapped there," said Sumant Batra, President of Insol.
As an open forum on insolvency reform, the Forum for Insolvency and Risk Management (FIRM), is holding its first steering committee meeting on February 24.
