FCSA, WB Group to help build expertise on ‘Doing Business’

Business Bureau, Gulf Today

The World Bank Group, with the support of the United Arab Emirates Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA) will host, from December 10 to 13, 2019 in Dubai, the third Doing Business Technical Deep Dive, a Masterclass and a knowledge sharing platform on the reforms counted by the World Bank Group’s Doing Business report. The event will welcome participants from over 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle-East and Oceania.

The Technical Deep Dive gathers reform experts and policy makers to discuss the methodology and indicators of the Doing Business report, share best practice on identifying bottlenecks to private sector development and enacting relevant reforms, participate in targeted capacity building and networking sessions and use those interactions to update their country reform action plans.

Abdulla Nasser Lootah, Director General of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA), said: “Holding the third Doing Business Technical Deep Dive here in the UAE is a testament to the country’s success in firmly establishing itself as a destination of choice for business and economic leaders, partners, and organizations. It reflects the great confidence our partners at the World Bank have come to place in the UAE to host meetings of this high caliber. With prominent delegations of decision-makers and accomplished economics and business experts slated to attend, the much-anticipated event marks yet another milestone on the UAE’s journey to achieve the UAE Vision 2021 and implement the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.”

The 2020 Doing Business report, which was launched on October 24, 2019, shows that reform expertise is growing in the Middle-East and Africa regions. Economies in the Middle East and North Africa implemented a record 57 business-friendly reforms and hosted four of the countries that improved the most world-wide in the ease of doing business – Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Sub-Saharan African countries implemented a total of 73 reforms, with Nigeria and Togo making the list of the global top reforming countries while Mauritius ranked as 13th easiest place to do business in the world.

Cemile Hacibeyoglu, Senior Private Sector Specialist, World Bank Group, said “UAE ranks 16th globally and is the highest-ranked economy in the Middle-East and North Africa region. In the coming days, many aspiring reformers from across the globe will come to learn from the UAE’s best practices and share their efforts aimed at narrowing the gap with top reforming economies in the world. The Technical Deep Dive is a unique learning platform that helps countries accelerate and deepen their reform agendas based on such peer-to-peer exchanges”.

The Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the sub-national and regional level. Launched in 2002, it looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle.

It may be noted that the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA), is a UAE Federal Government entity created by Presidential Decree No. 6 of 2015. The Authority’s mission is to strengthen and enhance the UAE’s national data and competitiveness capacities, and support the country as it works to achieve the UAE Vision 2021. The FCSA is the official government source for national statistics and is one of the government representatives on matters related to national competitiveness. The FCSA seeks to improve the UAE’s ranking in global competitiveness reports by working with stakeholders to outline and implement reforms and polices across sectors.

The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world.