Page 444 - Ministry of Economy - December 2017

12/25/2017 Challenges may come, but UAE's ready for it | MENAFN.COM
The intention is that, by 2021, the UAE will have

an economy that is exible in adopting new

economic models and that is able to capitalise

on global economic partnerships to guarantee

long-term prosperity for current and future

generations of Emiratis.

Developing a 'competitive knowledge economy' is one of the
pillars of the UAE National Agenda in line with Vision 2021.

According to an of cial report by the Ministry of Economy, the
government has continued in 2017 to focus on the UAE

becoming the economic, tourist and commercial capital for
more than two billion people. To achieve this, the government

has set 12 key performance indicators: non-oil real GDP growth;
gross national income per capita; net in ow of foreign direct

investment as a percentage of GDP; global competitiveness
index; share of UAE nationals in the workforce; ease of doing
business index; Emiratisation rate in the private sector; the

contribution by small and medium enterprises to non-oil GDP;
global entrepreneurship and development index; global

innovation index, share of 'knowledge workers' in the labour
force; and research and development expenditure as a

percentage of GDP.

Effective October 1, 2017, the UAE marked the

beginning of a new era in its history, as it started

implementing excise tax, exactly three months

ahead of the launch of value added tax, another

landmark region-wide tax initiative. Initial

estimates suggest that the tax will generate up

to around Dh7 billion in annual revenues for the

federal budget.

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