UAE leads Arab world in COVID-19 economic recovery

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The United Arab Emirates is leading the Arab region in the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Index Ranking issued by the Horizon Research Group.

The Index assesses how 122 countries are positioned for recovery, based on their overall health resilience, and the pre-existing structural strengths and weaknesses at the core of their recovery capacity.

Thanks to its long-term economic agility, robust, adaptive institutional system, and high literacy rate, the UAE occupies prominent places among advanced countries assessed by the Group in terms of health resilience, highly educated workforce, low debt levels, governance & social capital, and digital economy, at 5th, 15th, 17th, 19th and 21st places respectively.

"While they may have been deeply affected initially, countries.... including the United Arab Emirates, Luxemburg, Singapore, Israel, Malta, or Ireland, display stronger economic resilience, which will support recovery. These countries are mostly relatively small, open economies, highly dependent on international trade and/or flows of capital, and on sectors that are vulnerable to COVID-19 containment measures. Most of these countries have strong institutions and well-educated populations and are digitalised," reads the Index.

In 2020, the UAE Cabinet adopted the general plan for recovery and uprising, to back the business sectors and put into effect all the activities and business under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, other ministries and concerning federal and local governmental bodies, in cooperation with the private sector.

Despite the new variants of COVID-19, which endanger the safety of all societies and all aspects of life including economy, it is expected that the current year 2021 will be the start of recovery and adaptation.

The recovery started with the public keenness to take different vaccines available in the UAE, the case that supports the national efforts aiming to achieve the mass immunity.  

Although the pandemic badly affected most of the world economies, the gross local income is expected to grow at a rate of 3.6% by the end of 2021, based on the assessment of the the UAE Central Bank.

The International Monetary Fund expects that the UAE will achieve an economical growth of 3.1% during 2021, to be increasing at a rate of 2.6% by the year 2022.

The government revenues linked with the economic movement have achieved a growth of 115% during the first quarter of 2020, compared to the third quarter of the same year.

These revenues also continued its growth during the first quarter of 2021, at a rate of 13%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.

The growth of the government revenues linked with the economic movement reflects the revivification  of all sectors linked to business and tourism and demand on sales.

The number of new registered and licenced companies in the UAE has increased in 2020 at a rate of 4%, compared to 2019.

The UAE, for the 5th consecutive year, is ranked first in Middle East and North African country and ranked the ninth globally in the annual book of the world competitiveness 2021, issued by the Administrative Development Institute in Switzerland.