UAE is the second-largest economy of GCC with its rank rising consistently over the past 4 years.
The top position as the most innovative nation in Arab community still belongs to the UAE. Also, the global ranking of the UAE has become better by two positions. Given the Global Innovation Index (GII), the current position of the UAE is 36th.
UAE is the second-largest economy of GCC with its rank rising consistently over the past four years. In fact, the ranking of the UAE improved from 47th in 2015 to 36th in 2019. Besides, its rank for innovation input and output sub-indices was 24th and 58th, respectively.
According to the report of GII, the lowest cost of redundancy dismissal of the companies belongs to the UAE.
The GII ranking consists of 129 countries in terms of capacity to innovate; infrastructure; knowledge and technology outputs; market sophistication; human capital and research; business sophistication; and creative outputs.
The ranking of the UAE among main sub-indexes substantially rose in 2019. In terms of creative output index, its rank improved by 20 positions to 50th. Moreover, human capital and research moved 13 places to 18th this year.
Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, said the UAE’s innovation landscape is the result of strong partnerships among public, private and academic segments.
Hussain Ebrahim Al Hammadi, UAE Minister of Education, pointed out that his ministry also has something in mind to attain the targets set for innovation.
He said that this will result in more competitiveness in the necessary sector. The competitiveness will lead to UAE’s prosperity and its quick transition towards a sustainable economy based on knowledge.
According to Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, Governor of the Central Bank of the UAE, the focus is on ensuring stability of the country’s financial system while developing an investment-friendly framework. The goal of the framework is to increase access to finance for the private segment. This is particularly for entrepreneurs and SMEs.
Younis Haji Al Khoori, Under-secretary at the Ministry of Finance, said that the accessibility of enough financing mechanisms is one of the most crucial contributors to have a successful innovation system at the national level.
He also said that the Ministry of Finance in partnership with the National Agenda team is working to provide, increase and sustain the financing mechanisms. Besides, they want to build a national network with the goal of supporting fundamental research. The Ministry will keep working with its partners with the goal of encourage a culture of innovation.
In the region, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Bahrain, and Oman are after the UAE.
In the world, Switzerland was ranked first in terms of innovation. Actually, Switzerland is the most innovative nation which is followed by Sweden, the US, the Netherlands, the UK, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, and Germany.
*some of the information above was based on the report of Khaleej Times website.