Dubai: The UAE will focus on growing its industrial sector and achieving self-sufficiency in the next 10 years, according to UAE’s Deputy Prime Minister.
“The UAE will focus mainly on growing the industrial sector and achieving more self-sufficiency,” said Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.
Speaking at second day of the World Government Summit, Sheikh Mansour said the pandemic demonstrated the importance of government’s ability to manufacture products locally.
“When we entered the pandemic period, we realised the importance of the industrial sector during such a kind of crisis as there was pressure on local industry, with increasing demands for local production,” said Sheik Mansour.
The pandemic showed how UAE decision-makers managed to handle the crisis with the available sources that were produced locally, he added.
The goal of the strategy is to support the setting up of 13,500 industrial companies and will help increase spending on research and development in the industrial sector from Dh21 billion to Dh57 billion in the coming years.
“One of the key pillars that the UAE will focus on in coming years is the industrial sector,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. “Nothing will harm or negatively impact investors in this sector due to flexible UAE laws.”
He said: “The pandemic made us realise how important the industrial sector is. In figures, our income of the industrial sector was only 8 per cent to our GDP 10 years ago, and today it is 9 per cent.
Sheikh Mansour emphasised that the nation must focus more on the industrial sector and support it more than ever. “We have ambitious projects and we must set the priorities.”
