UAE | Government

UAE strives for better demographic balance

Companies in the UAE will be rated according to their employment policies.

  • By Samir Salama, Associate Editor
  • Published: 23:54 September 1, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: WAM
  • His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, visited the Fujairah Naval Base on Monday. He broke his fast with the officers at the base.

Abu Dhabi: Advanced construction techniques that will call for a significantly fewer number of labourers and a scheme under which expatriate students are allowed to take up part-time jobs are among initiatives expected to better shape the demographic structure of the country, a top official said on Monday.

“His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, approved a number of policies submitted by the National Authority for Demographic Structure,'' said Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Interior.

In a statement issued on Monday, Shaikh Saif said the government is making serious efforts to correct the demographic imbalance while taking care not to upset development projects and keeping the national interest paramount.

Openness

Another initiative will see companies being rated according to their compliance with labour rules and openness to employees of different nationalities.

The Minister of Economy in his capacity as chairman of the Standardisation and Metrology Authority was entrusted the task of overseeing implementation of new building techniques to replace labour-intensive systems currently in use.

Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said the committee would soon finalise the outlines of the newly set up National Demographic Authority, including the authority's governance, bylaws, work procedures and relations with all ministries and government bodies. The establishment of the authority was approved by the Cabinet in May.

Rashid Al Nuaimi, the authority's special adviser, said other initiatives will be submitted to the cabinet after being studied and evaluated by the committee.

He said the committee will hold a workshop early next month, in which all public and private sector bodies concerned will participate, to discuss and define marginal professions and unimportant activities which can be scrapped, replaced or amended according to necessity.

The workshop will also include studying other new initiatives that aim to step up emiratisation and cut down dependency on foreign labour as much as possible.

With inputs from WAM

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