Emirates News Agency
Abu Dhabi (UAE) – The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will kick start a project that will examine the competitiveness of its economy at federal and emirates level and suggest a new national growth strategy.
The project will be supervised by Michael E Porter, professor at Harvard Business School, and will be completed in 18 months, according to a report in Gulf News.
According to Porter, the UAE model for success has outlived itself and a new strategy is needed to deal with the new generation of problems and issues. "Success of one strategy creates its own weaknesses", said Porter.
According him, the UAE has emerged as a role model for many countries in the region, however with its success some weaknesses have also surfaced in the last few years.
A sudden and continuous rise in population has pushed per capita GDP into the negative zone. At the same time, this has also adversly affected the growth of productivity, said Porter.
The project is sponsored by Strategy for Energy Dependent Economies Inc (SEDE), a non-profit affiliate of BTU Ventures. Porter will be assisted by one of his Harvard associates in the project. He will guide the team of locals in data collection and methodology for the project.
The core of the team will be local and this will help to develop an understanding of the local angle in the project, said Porter.
The project will be completed in 12 to 18 months and the team will be ready with a report on the first phase by next fall, said Porter.
Advocating more skill oriented and capital-intensive strategies for a country like the UAE, he said that for greater prosperity the UAE should slow population growth and focus more on skilled jobs for the future.
Porter also advocated some radical steps like the introduction of a tax system. According him the lack of taxes is not healthy for any economy. The project will focus on each emirate on a case by case basis and work out a strategy according to each requirement.
Porter said each emirate has its own problems so there is a need to work out individual solutions.
Mentioning the case of Abu Dhabi, he said Dubai reduced its dependence on oil but Abu Dhabi is still dependent largely on oil for income.
Abu Dhabi must diversify its resources and become more productive, "and for that you need a strategy different from that of Dubai," said Porter.
