São Paulo – Fostering and development banks will be fundamental to promote the growth and guarantee political stability in countries that lived the Arab Spring. This was one of the conclusions reached by the participants of the Arab Spring panel, promoted on Thursday (13) at the Arab-European Economic Forum in Beirut, Lebanon. In another two panels in the second and last day of the forum, investment in small and medium companies and renewable energy projects were discussed.
According to the director general at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, those invited to debate at the panel on the Arab Spring stated that it should take a long time for the governments of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia to manage to stabilise their countries and create institutions that guarantee political security for the population, for foreign investors and that allow economic growth.
For this to be possible, financing institutions and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman) will play a fundamental part. After all, it will be through financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Islamic Development Fund and the Islamic Fostering Bank that the countries affected by change may invest in infrastructure works for the creation of jobs and even in basic services for the population, like public health.
In the panel on renewable energy and sustainability, Morocco has presented its solar energy projects, one of them already in operation, and Qatar has revealed that it is developing 12 studies of solar mills for production of energy for use in water desalination. The head of the European Investment Bank’s Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund, Cyrille Arnould, stated that the institution has US$ 2 billion for the financing of renewable energy projects in Arab countries.
At the other panel of the day, about investment in partnerships, micro and small companies and infrastructure, the head of the United Nations Investment Fund for Development of Medium and Small Companies (Unido), Hashem Hussein, stated that the institution supports 38 incubator projects, that is, by companies that are not yet on the market, but have potential for growth. Apart from that, the Unido supports chemical and petrochemical projects in countries in the Gulf.
Supporting these innovative projects, however, has not been easy in Africa. According to Alaby, the Unido stated that it does not operate in the countries of North Africa due to lack of capacity among the local governments. A French group complained about lack of transparency in some Arab countries and stated that the nations in the region do not guarantee legal safety necessary for operation within them.
*Translated by Mark Ament
