Dubai: A number of senior ministers, including the UAE’s Minister of State for Financial Affairs, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, and Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), met on the sidelines of the World Government Summit, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said in a statement on Monday.
The high-level closed session, held in cooperation with the Prime Minister’s Office and the IMF, centred on the subject of economic diversification.
The aim of the meeting was to discuss the challenges facing policymakers seeking to diversify their economies, and solutions to support their goals of building economies based on innovation and knowledge in the region.
In addition to Al Tayer and Lagarde, the session was also attended by a number of ministers of finance and Arab central bank governors, including Sir Suma Chakrabarti, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Bandar Bin Hajjar, President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB); Abdul Rahman A Al Hamidy, Director General, Chairman of the Board of the Arab Monetary Fund, and heads of global and regional economic and financial institutions.
During his opening speech, UAE’s minister of finance Al Tayer stressed the need to develop sustainable government revenues by depending on alternative resources, controlling expenditure and adjusting financials to drive economic growth, while maintaining global financial and economic stability.
“The decline in oil prices in the UAE led to a number of opportunities for the economic restructuring, promoting economic diversification policies, which were laid down since the early eighties by the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, followed by the guidance of His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. These policies play an important role in promoting sources of income, building a knowledge based economy, with a strong spirit of excellence and innovation,” Al Tayer said at the meeting.
He added that it was important the “dependence on oil for the GDP does not exceed 30 per cent, whereby our leadership provided an appropriate environment to expand productivity, increased dependency on non-oil sectors.”
Lagarde highlighted that strong economic principles support UAE to adapt to new oil prices. She also highlighted that the country will maintain its successful performance in the future by considering structural reforms to increase economic diversification, enhance business and public resources and strengthen public institutions.
