Manufacturing, world economy are key decisions at global summit

Syrian crisis, refugee crisis are most urgent challenges globally

28 October 2015

Abu Dhabi: Decisions regarding the future of manufacturing in the UAE, and the future of the world economy are two of the key decisions that were made during the World Economic Forum’s Summit on Global Agenda, the event’s co-chair said.

“The message from this event is how we are able to come up with a clear agenda on the world’s situation.

Mainly, when it comes to the UAE, [the key message is] on the future of manufacturing, the future of the economy of the world, and where we are on this, as well as how we address some challenging issues including innovation, which is an integral part of the UAE strategy for economic growth in the future,” Sultan Al Mansouri, the UAE’s Minister of Economy and co-chair of the summit, told Gulf News.

The minister was speaking at the closing plenary of the summit, which ran from October 25-27 at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit.

During his closing remarks, Al Mansouri said that some of the most urgent issues around the world now are the Syrian crisis, the refugee crisis, and challenges in the global economy.

“All of us were very optimistic two and a half years back that we were coming out from [a global economic] crisis, but there are definitely some challenges still lingering in a lot of the economies in the world.

The UAE is very keen … to understand the right steps to make sure that we are hopefully moving towards what we call the knowledge economy in combination with the innovation strategy that we have initiated in the UAE,” he said.

The minister said that the UAE’s innovation strategy will not be a model of other countries’ models as the country seeks to have its own unique model.

“Why did the UAE start the strategy of innovation? It’s not because of the UAE itself — we are already diverse, and moving on [in that direction]. We want to make a change in the region. We want to prove to the rest of the region that it’s not the natural resources that are going to sustain growth; it’s the people, and the brains of the people,” Al Mansouri said.