UAE to become a global hub for clean and sustainable energy

The UAE, through the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, has made notable achievements across the energy, infrastructure, housing, and transportation sectors during 2024.

These achievements are a testament to its steadfast commitment to enhancing sustainable development and ensuring the well-being of society, with a focus on innovation and technology.

Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure (MoEI), emphasised that these achievements are the culmination of a strategic vision aimed at balancing urban development with environmental protection.

He pointed out that the UAE recognises the importance of international cooperation in the transition to clean and sustainable energy and is striving to enhance joint investments in this field, supporting its position as a global hub for developing and exporting clean energy solutions.

Regarding the energy sector, Al Mazrouei explained that the UAE continues its steady progress towards achieving its ambitious goals in clean and renewable energy. This approach involves reducing dependence on fossil fuels and increasing the contribution of renewable energy to the national energy mix.

He added that to accelerate the transition to clean energy and develop sustainable energy solutions, the UAE plans to invest an additional Dhs500 billion over the next thirty years to achieve climate neutrality. Currently, the UAE’s renewable energy production stands at 6 GW and nuclear energy at 5.6 GW.

In infrastructure, he pointed out that the total federal assets have reached nearly 3,000 federal buildings, including healthcare, educational, government service facilities, and mosques.

The total investments in infrastructure between 2018 and 2023 amounted to Dhs11.8 billion, covering infrastructure projects and maintenance under the Ministry’s investment programme and the Follow-up Committee for the Initiatives of His Highness the President of the UAE. This includes Dhs6.62 billion for federal government buildings and Dhs5.18 billion for federal roads, dams, and waterways.

Regarding the housing sector, he explained that the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, since its establishment in 1999, has enhanced family stability by issuing over 90,000 housing support decisions worth nearly Dhs60 billion.

The minister noted that in the last three years, nearly 13,000 housing support decisions were issued, totalling Dhs10 billion. These included 10,738 loan and financing decisions valued at approximately Dhs8.8 billion, and 2,347 grant decisions valued at Dhs1.567 billion, contributing to a 95 per cent reduction in the backlog of pending decisions.

He also highlighted the “Manzli” bundle, which caters to the beneficiaries of the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, offering 18 housing services to citizens through a collaboration between 24 federal and local government entities.

It is user-friendly as it reduces the number of required documents from 10 to two, the number of processes from 14 to three, and the number of service fields from 32 to five.

Underscoring the UAE’s leading role in supporting the maritime sector, the country was chosen as the host of the World Maritime Day Parallel Event in 2025.

The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure also signed a cooperation memorandum with NeoNautica, a company specialising in digital technology and services for the maritime sector, to develop and operate the “UAE Blue Pass Platform.”

Moreover, the UAE has successfully launched the Blue Pass Multimodal - a unified digital portal that designs main pathways for integrating and accelerating multi-modal shipping.

Additionally, the country has actively participated in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), presenting numerous working papers that contributed to enhancing the efficiency of global maritime operations.

Regarding the logistics sector, he pointed out that the UAE ranked seventh globally in logistics performance in 2023, first globally in the quality of air transport infrastructure, and third in facilitating sea freight trade, providing ship fuel, and air transport efficiency.
Additionally, the UAE ranked fifth globally in port rankings, fifth globally and first in the Arab region in road quality, ninth globally in port efficiency, 12th in maritime transport, and 13th globally in maritime connectivity and shipping lines.

The Ministry has achieved exceptional milestones within the Bureaucracy Zero Programme, which aims to simplify and reduce procedures. It has eliminated bureaucracy in 21 services and processes, cancelling nearly 745,000 government procedures and reducing service completion time by 75 per cent. This led to saving 21 million hours of customers’ time and reducing field and electronic visits by more than 75 per cent, increasing customer satisfaction by 91 per cent.

WAM