The UAE, the Arab world's second biggest economy, is part of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council. It was also part of a planned monetary union till May this year when it walked away over a dispute. The move frees up its monetary policy from certain obligations.

"It may be a good time now for the government to reassess the dollar volatility," Hamad Bu Amim, Dir-ector-General of the Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber, told Gulf News. "We always link our monetary and fiscal policies with the United States."

It's time to revisit that link, he said.

"The Central BankCentral Bank is applying different monetary tools and is not blindly following US policies.

"Having said that, the dollar peg has served us well for the last three decades."

The weak dollar might have helped the US economy — but it has affected other economies, and hurt some.

"Evidently, this hedging tool is losing steam, really," he added.

Costs getting lower
The current economic situation provides a better business environment for investors who could benefit from low cost base in starting up businesses, Hamad Bu Amim, Director-General of the Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber, said.

"The current lower property prices and rents and flat inflation creates a good investment climate for new investors," Bu Amim told Gulf News.

"They can start businesses with a much lower start-up capital. Doing business is much cheaper now than a few years ago. Besides the expanded infrastructure at the airport, roads and highways, the opening of Dubai Metro — all strengthens Dubai's attractions as a global hub.

"That's why we are celebrating Dubai's business diversity by inviting the who's who of Dubai at our inaugural Dubai Business Gala," he said.

The gala event, to be held tomorrow, will be attended by leading businessmen, dignitaries and top government officials offering everyone the opportunity to network and talk business.

By Saifur Rahman

© Gulf News 2009

 

Community Comments (1) - Comment on this article

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But in no circumstance ... by Ivo Cerckel, writer, Honest Money - 01-Nov-09
But in no circumstance, use this opportunity to ask what money is.

Money is a GOOD readily acceptable in exchange by everyone in a given geographical area, and is sought for the purpose of being re-exchanged.
Money is not digits, nor a freely floating abstraction which exists in the mind only. Money does not come into existence by attempting to capture the “reality” of economic relationships into a MODEL.
Money is not a wager that completely disregards the important relationship between itself, money, and prices.
Money needs an anchor, an anchor in reality, not in the mind. Money cannot be itself the anchor if it has no reality. Money cannot be itself the anchor if it exists only in the (digital) mind.
The central element in the economic problem of money is the objective exchange value of money, popularly called its purchasing power.

Hence, Saudi Aramco announced on Wednesday that it will begin using the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI) published by Argus Media as the benchmark price for all grades of crude oil sold to US customers. Aramco thereby decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Will Aramco price oil in the GCC single currency and will Saudi Arabia therefore look to it that the currency has an anchor in reality? [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

 

 

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