The announcement of a new version of the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 is on the cards, a senior official at the Dubai Economic Council told Zawya.
"We do not have full ownership of the plan but do have a part of it and hope to see an official announcement soon this year," said Hani Al Hamli, the secretary general of the Council. He was not willing to elaborate on the time frame.
A revised version of the strategic plan has been sent to the Council, which oversees government strategy and budgeting. The Council originally commissioned a development plan for the emirate in 2007 that assumed annual 11% real GDP growth rate, in line with the rapid rate at which Dubai's economy was expanding at the time. The figure is expected to be revised to single-digit numbers.
"The plan will be totally revised to reflect the current global economic conditions, the European debt crisis, the currency issue and our strategic initiative towards tourism since Dubai is a service oriented economy and not focused on oil production," Al Hamli told Zawya. Currently, trade, retail, transport and tourism collectively represent about 60% of Dubai's GDP. "The focus is to put Dubai tourism on the global map together with Emirates airline," he said.
Dubai is also beefing up its attitude to becoming a strong international player in the global competitiveness arena. "We plan to have a dedicated dialogue on competitiveness and also tackle it with the clusters in the emirate. In the pipeline, we expect to see revisions on newer clusters where we will ask for official disclosures. This information will be added to the competitiveness report on Dubai," Al Hamli said.
"We have conducted extensive surveys and will soon announce dedicated reports. We are also working with a couple of international institutions who tackle the competitiveness from the institutional point of view and will announce the details at a later stage."
According to a recent Zawya Dow Jones report, the revisions to the 2015 strategy will be based on a review of economic activity in Dubai between 2000 and 2010, as mentioned in Dubai's recently updated prospectus for its USD 5 billion euro medium-term notes program. The new plan would focus on promoting the emirate's knowledge-based economy by improving the regulatory environment for financial and professional services industries, attracting international companies to establish headquarters in Dubai and encouraging Dubai-based companies to expand globally.
© Zawya 2012
