Unified policies 'will create employment'

Dubai: Finding unified nationalisation policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries is vital to combat unemployment, agreed ministers and government officials from the region in the first Gulf Nationalisation and Employment Strategy Forum yesterday.

With the slogan "towards a unified nationalisation strategy in the GCC countries", attendees discussed ways in which the GCC states could combat unemployment among nationals, unify nationalisation policies and learn from the experience of member states that have implemented successful strategies.

"Perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing the region today is finding job opportunities for Gulf nationals ... which has become a priority for Gulf countries," said Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Government Sector Development.

He said the Arab world was in a sensitive situation since it "needs to create tens of millions of jobs in the next two decades". The minister said that unemployment had not been tackled in a "deep and realistic way" in Gulf countries. "So far we have not seen any effective steps taken to solve the problems of nationalisation in many of the Gulf states."

Abdul Rahman Bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Secretary General of the GCC, said in a statement read at the forum that the Supreme Consultative Authority at the council had made nationalisation of the GCC job market and its freedom of movement between members countries a priority.

Recommendations

The authority, he said, has made recommendations to the member countries in order to assist their nationalisation programmes.

"Among the recommendations was ensuring that government sectors in member countries continued to apply the policies of increasing the number of nationals in the workforce and reduce expatriate workers and involving the private sector in planning special programmes for nationalisation. The authority has also ensured to make available information on the public and private sector labour markets to GCC countries," he said.

Ahmad Humaid Al Tayer, Chairman of Emirates NBD, said that it was important for banking sectors in GCC countries to learn from the experiences of other members, singling out Oman and Saudi Arabia as members who have had the most successful nationalisation policies in that sector, with 92 per cent and 85 per cent nationalisation respectively.

Although the UAE only has 31.2 per cent of its banking sector nationalised, it represents one of the largest banking sectors in the Gulf, employing a total of 29,282 people, while Oman's banking sector employs 5,741 people, according to statistics cited by Al Tayer.

Nationalising the banking sector, he said, was important because it served as a stepping stone for nationals who wanted to move into other sectors, saying 1,400 Emiratis had moved on from the banking sector already.