UAE Approves Strategy to Double Contribution of Digital Economy to GDP Within 10 Years

 Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid chairing a cabinet session on Monday, April 11, 2022. (WAM)
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid chairing a cabinet session on Monday, April 11, 2022. (WAM)
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UAE Approves Strategy to Double Contribution of Digital Economy to GDP Within 10 Years

 Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid chairing a cabinet session on Monday, April 11, 2022. (WAM)
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid chairing a cabinet session on Monday, April 11, 2022. (WAM)

The UAE cabinet on Monday approved a digital economy strategy to double the contribution of the digital economy to the GDP from 9.7% to 19.4% within the next 10 years. It also aims to transfer the UAE into a hub for digital economy regionally and globally.

The strategy includes more than 30 initiatives and programs targeting six sectors and five new areas of growth.

It will define the digital economy in the country, with a unified mechanism for measuring its growth while measuring its indicators periodically.

The strategy will define the priorities of digital economy in the country, ensuring the contribution of all other economic sectors to promote and support the digital economy.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, said: “Our goal is to increase the contribution of the digital economy sector to the non-oil GDP by 20 percent over the next 10 years.”

“We formed a Council for Digital Economy chaired by Omar bin Sultan al-Olama, the UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Teleworking Applications,” he added.

The cabinet also approved a federal law about the public finance. It compels federal authorities to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to achieve the financial strategy’s objectives.

It approved executive regulation of the federal decree-law on private education aimed at regulating the work of private schools in the country, in accordance with the objectives of the private education law, the provisions of which apply to all private schools in the UAE.

The executive regulation aims to enhance a high-level educational system that regulates the licensing mechanism for private schools, to ensure the quality of education and to place students among the best in the world in knowledge assessment tests.

The cabinet further adopted a unified framework to coordinate and organize the humanitarian and development work of the charitable institutions.

It includes a guide that organizes the seasonal work of all UAE donors concerned with foreign aids, in accordance with international standards, and in line with the UAE foreign aid policy and strategy.

This framework includes the establishment of coordinating offices in the country's missions abroad for foreign aid.

It will contribute to regulating financial transfers to donors, and the UAE charitable institutions in the beneficiary countries.

In addition to reviewing and discussing several reports, the cabinet approved an agreement to linking payment systems among GCC countries, an agreement with Brazil, two agreements with Denmark and an agreement with the United States.



Oil Inches up After Trump Cancels Chevron’s Venezuela License 

Oil tankers sail the Maracaibo Lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on March 15 , 2019. (AFP)
Oil tankers sail the Maracaibo Lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on March 15 , 2019. (AFP)
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Oil Inches up After Trump Cancels Chevron’s Venezuela License 

Oil tankers sail the Maracaibo Lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on March 15 , 2019. (AFP)
Oil tankers sail the Maracaibo Lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on March 15 , 2019. (AFP)

Oil prices edged up on Thursday after sliding in the previous two sessions, with supply worries resurfacing after US President Donald Trump announced a reversal of a license given to Chevron to operate in Venezuela.

Brent crude oil futures was up 2 cent at $72.55 a barrel by 0731 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were up 6 cents at $68.68 per barrel.

A day earlier, the contracts settled at their lowest since December 10 due to a surprise build in US fuel inventories that hinted at weakening demand and hopes for a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Both benchmarks have lost about 5% so far this month.

Trump on Wednesday said he was reversing a license given to Chevron to operate in Venezuela by his predecessor Joe Biden more than two years ago.

Chevron exports about 240,000 barrels per day of crude from its Venezuela operations, over a quarter of the country's entire oil output. Ending the license means Chevron will no longer be able to export Venezuelan crude.

"The Venezuela news triggered unwinding after the recent sell-off amid Russian-Ukraine ceasefire talks," said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, president of NS Trading, a unit of Nissan Securities.

"Potential buying from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve also supported the market since WTI was trading near its lowest level in over two months," he said.

Last week, Trump said his administration would quickly fill up the SPR. He criticized Biden for tapping the SPR to bring down the price of gasoline.

Market participants remain focused on Trump's Russian-Ukrainian peace talks. Trump said Volodymyr Zelenskiy would visit Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on rare earth minerals, while the Ukrainian leader said the success of the deal would hinge on those talks and continued US aid.

US crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week as refining activity ticked higher, while gasoline and distillate inventories posted surprising gains, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

"Since this is a seasonal off-peak period, with demand shifting from kerosene to gasoline, the sell-off driven by rising product inventories has likely run its course," NS Trading's Kikukawa said.

Separately, Goldman Sachs said in a note on Wednesday that the US administration's dual goals of commodity dominance and affordability reinforce the bank's Brent $70-85 range baseline, a range that is conducive to robust US supply growth.