In the past decades, GCC countries have achieved great progress in diversifying their economies by improving their infrastructure, laying the foundation for conventional economic sectors and pumping huge investment into them.

However, this development has not included advanced information technology and knowledge-based digital economies that are attained from scientific studies and research centres.

GCC private sectors focus mainly on acquiring fast profits, which usually depend on the fluctuating levels of supply and demand on one hand, and severe financial speculation on the other, resulting in the instability of the region's economy.

Despite this, GCC countries have made some progress in the knowledge-based economy field by setting up some modern sectors, such as cities specialising in the economic prospects of information and telecommunication technology. Investment made in the telecommunications sector helped it spread from GCC countries into many other countries around the world. This progress, however, depended mostly on imported technology, as pointed out by Dr Ahmad Zewail, winner of the Noble Prize in Chemistry, during Dubai's Arab Media Forum in May.

It seems future economic development will depend on the progress that can be achieved in a knowledge-based economy. The world has depended for a long time on traditional sectors that receive their developmental drive from the availability of raw materials.

Technical knowledge

Raw materials will always remain a primary factor for growth. However, harnessing them for economic growth will depend mainly on the use of modern technical knowledge to utilise these materials. The absence of this attribute will result in limited choices of investment and will hinder development strategies.

Therefore, it is important to find the essential pillars of a knowledge-based economy, which is required for coping with international progress in all fields.

Setting up scientific research centres, institutions and laboratories in the GCC is required in the quest for a knowledge-based economy, which will contribute to the rapid global development of creativity and discovery, so that GCC countries will be ranked among the most technologically advanced and not just as consumers of such technological innovations.

Besides that, the issues of education must top the agenda of countries thriving to achieve comprehensive development. Education in GCC countries still relies on traditional methods of learning due to a lack of computers in their schools.

Moreover, the curriculum is still filled with historical and literary information, which results in creating a huge gap between educational output and development requirements.

Therefore, to implement a knowledge economy approach it is important to establish the necessary foundations, such as setting up research centres, more specialist scientific institutes and supporting them. These steps are a must for the next stage of development in GCC countries, without which their economies will continue to revolve around traditional sectors that depend on expensive imported technology.

The GCC countries have been able to achieve some progress in this area in the past few years, especially in the field of alternative energy technology, but this was also accomplished by importing the required technology, which is quite natural in the preliminary stage.

However, localising these technologies will provide a basis for future development, and the GCC countries could benefit from the experience of some Asian countries.

Perhaps one GCC country alone does not possess the essential aspects for such an approach. Since the GCC countries were able to establish a common market more than two years ago, it would be possible to establish joint-GCC research centres. These could decrease the required effort and expenses for establishing them, and at the same time, increase their efficiency and success.

The centres must be set up when favourable factors and conditions are present to utilise their potential, capitalise on opportunities and achieve mutual benefits. They must also be distributed, without exception, around all the GCC countries.

This approach is important for integrating economic development with scientific progress, which will determine the state of various countries' economies in the coming decades, including the GCC.

Dr Mohammad Al Asoomi is a UAE economic expert