Abu Dhabi: The UAE Cabinet, chaired by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, today congratulated President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Members of the Supreme Council and Rulers of the Emirates, the Emirati people and Arab and Muslim countries on the occasion of the month of Ramadan.

Shaikh Mohammad said, “Ramadan is an opportunity for us all to renew our energy, spread the spirit of tolerance and our traditions alike.” He added, “Ramadan is an occasion and opportunity for innovation in our life and to adopt positive behaviour. It is an opportunity to review our life and dedicate more efforts for work.”

The Cabinet has endorsed setting up the National Programme for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. The programme, which will be under the umbrella of the Ministry of Economy, aims to develop blueprints to provide expertise, technical support as well as training to boost SMEs. It will also coordinate with federal and local governments and the private sector to promote products inside the UAE and abroad as well as conduct periodic reviews of SMEs on challenges and proposed recommendations.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet also issued a decree to set up the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Council that will represent relevant government and private entities. The mandate of the Council will include draft policies and strategies on developing SMEs, set regulations that will coordinate the relationship of the National Programme for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and relevant entities as well as follow up the performance of the programme. The Cabinet also reviewed the mechanism to provide incentives to national SMEs in the UAE.

Boosting local and global competitiveness of the SME in the UAE reflects the government’s efforts to ensure sustainable economic development that will eventually contribute to the UAE’s economy, which is based on knowledge and innovation. This comes in line with the National Agenda which seeks to ensure “SME’s contribution to non-oil GDP reaching 70 per cent by the year 2021”.

The Cabinet also discussed other topics and endorsed implementing a national strategy to establish and support research and development centres on health-related issues. It aims at coordinating efforts with academia in the UAE to develop and publish scientific research on health issues, identify and address health issues in the UAE community as well as nurture an innovative environment to strike an effective partnership between the public and private sectors and academia.

The strategy, which will be implemented between 2015 and 2017, seeks to boost the contribution of the UAE globally in scientific research on health issues, develop policies and legislations, and provide a nurturing environment to support studies.

The outputs of health-related research centres will contribute towards setting scientific research ethics in the country, encourage researchers, and set up a unified system to register health-related publications. It will also contribute towards building national capacity as well as provide a comprehensive database.

This national strategy on health-related research centres comes in line with the UAE Vision 2021 that reflects the government’s efforts to provide the best health services.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet also approved an awareness-oriented initiative, which is an outcome of the government innovation lab. It aims to educate the public about a healthy lifestyle and engage all members of the community and NGOs in health-related awareness programmes. The initiative includes a number of measures to combat obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle. It will include more than 20 awareness activities, supervised by the Ministry of Health and a number of federal and local entities will take part in implementing the initiative within three years.

Pertaining to legislations, the Cabinet endorsed amending a few items of Federal Law No 16 of 2007 on animal protection as well as issuing a federal law on regulating the owning of animals.

Related to financial matters, the Cabinet approved the closing account of the Emirates Real Estate Corporation. The Cabinet also endorsed extending the period of preparing federal entities’ mid-term budget from three to five years.

On the international level, the Cabinet endorsed a bilateral agreement on customs with Morocco, another with Albania on mutual visa waiver for diplomats. The Cabinet also endorsed five agreements on economic and technical cooperation with Kosovo, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Singapore and Barbados. It also signed two agreements with the Italian government on legal issues as well as two agreements with Chad and Guinea-Bissau on aviation services.

The UAE Cabinet held its meeting at the presidential palace which was also attended by Lt Gen Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.