Tag: economic growth

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Arab News Business Finance

Abu Dhabi private sector achieves remarkable growth

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In 2023, the private sector continued its strong growth, reaching AED 338.9 billion, up 35% compared to 2016. Supported by private sector and family-owned businesses, Abu Dhabi non-oil sectors is going from strength to strength…. reports Asian Lite News

The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), organized the second edition of the Al Multaqa quarterly meetings, aiming to strengthen partnerships with the private sector and family offices. The meetings provided the business community with updates on the Emirate’s economy and achievements in 2023, while also emphasizing future opportunities.

Launched in Q4-2023, Al Multaqa Meetings empower Abu Dhabi’s to accelerate economic growth, by providing a platform for ongoing dialogues to support investment and the development of new policies that further enhance the Emirate’s business environment.
In 2023, the private sector continued its strong growth, reaching AED 338.9 billion, up 35% compared to 2016. Supported by private sector and family-owned businesses, Abu Dhabi non-oil sectors is going from strength to strength, recording a growth of 9.1 per cent during 2023 to AED 610 billion to contribute 53.4% of total real GDP.

Addressing Al Multaqa meeting, Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), said: “The importance of our collaborative efforts is reflected in Abu Dhabi’s growth indicators. Remarkably, we managed to achieve this strong performance despite global challenges, reflecting the strength and resilience of our ‘Falcon Economy’ and its ability to soar to new heights.”
“Backed by decades-long experience, the private sector and family-owned businesses in Abu Dhabi continue to contribute to economic diversification as evidenced by their share in the highest growing non-oil sectors”.


Family-owned businesses in Abu Dhabi represent 50 per cent of companies in the construction sector, which grew by 13.1 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching more than AED97 billion; 60 per cent in the finance sector, which rose by 25.5 per cent to AED79 billion; 80 per cent in the wholesale trade sector, which achieved a growth of 7.9 per cent, to reach AED63 billion; and 70 per cent in the transportation sector, which rose by 17.1 per cent during past year.


Al Zaabi added: “In our first meeting, we underlined the crucial role that family offices and private sector play in Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s success. Today, I reiterate the importance of discussing promising opportunities, analyse challenges, and work together to overcome them. We are organising these meetings to ensure the exchange of opinions and to benefit from the extensive experiences and knowledge.”


Abdulla Gharib Alqemzi, Acting Director General of the Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi, delivered a comprehensive presentation about economic performance of the Emirate during the past 10 years, which saw a 28.5 per cent growth of non-oil GDP, from AED 474.6 billion in 2014 to AED 610 billion in 2023, and a 19 percent rise of total real GDP, from AED 960.1 billion in 2014 to AED 1.14 trillion in 2023.


Alqemzi highlighted major sectors contributing to economic diversification efforts, including manufacturing, construction, finance, trade, transportation, real estate, and ICT.

Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO)’s Musataha Programme revealed several investment opportunities offered to the private sector, enabling investors to develop government-owned land. ADIO also announced investment opportunities in the sports field in different areas of the Emirate in addition to new sites that will be offered to develop feed-selling markets.


ADIO has signed agreement with Dustour Marine Wooden Boats Trading Est. to establish a new state-of-the-art project to support the Emirate’s coastal development in line with urban, social, recreational, and economic expansion plans.


ADDED’s Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) and SMEs sector shared significant updates to further improve ease of doing business and enable the private sector to benefit from ample opportunities provided by development plans.

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Categories
-Top News China Economy

Investors Worry Over China’s Sluggish Growth

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HSI) Index slid into a bear market on Friday, having fallen more than 20 per cent from its recent peak in January.

China’s economic slowdown has alarmed international leaders and investors, as per CNN.

For the first time in decades, the world’s second economy is itself in trouble.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HSI) Index slid into a bear market on Friday, having fallen more than 20 per cent from its recent peak in January.

The Chinese yuan, last week, fell to its lowest level in 16 years, prompting the central bank to make its biggest defence of the currency on record by setting a much higher rate to the dollar than the estimated market value.

The issue is that, after a rapid spurt of activity earlier this year following the lifting of COVID lockdowns, growth is stalling. Consumer prices are falling, a real estate crisis is deepening and exports are in a slump. Unemployment among youth has gotten so bad the government has stopped publishing the data, as per CNN.

A major homebuilder and a prominent investment company in China have missed payments to their investors in recent weeks, rekindling fears that the ongoing deterioration of the housing market could lead to heightened risks to financial stability.

A lack of resolute measures to stimulate domestic demand and fears of contagion have triggered a new round of growth downgrades, with several major investment banks cutting their forecasts of China’s economic growth to below five per cent, according to CNN.

UBS analysts wrote in a Monday research note: “We downgrade China’s real GDP growth forecast … as the property downturn has deepened, external demand has weakened further, and policy support has been less than expected.”

Researchers at Nomura, Morgan Stanley and Barclays had previously trimmed their forecasts.

That means China might significantly miss its official growth target of “around 5.5 per cent,” which would be an embarrassment for the Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping, according to CNN.

ALSO READ: China’s Banking Crisis Intensifies Amid Escalating Property Sector Issues

Categories
-Top News Economy India News

World Bank pegs India’s economic growth at 8.3%

The projection is lower than the forecast by the Reserve Bank of India, which had in December said that the GDP growth rate is likely to be 9.5 percent for the current fiscal, reports Asian Lite News

India’s economic growth is expected to be 8.3 per cent in the current financial year and 8.7 per cent in 2022-23, according to the World Bank’s “Global Economic Prospects” report, released on Tuesday.

The World Bank has maintained its forecast for India’s growth rate at the same level as it had projected in October 2021 even as it expects the global economic growth to slow down sharply.

The World Bank report said global economic growth will “decelerate markedly” this year as coronavirus outbreaks and supply chain snarls persist. At the same time, the support programmes unveiled by several governments are about to end.

The report said that global growth will slow down to 4.1 percent this year from an estimated 5.5 percent in 2021, but warned “Omicron-related economic disruptions could substantially reduce growth” to as low as 3.4 percent.

The report also said that the Indian economy’s growth rate in the current, as well as the next fiscal, will be stronger compared to its immediate geographic neighbours.

Bangladesh is expected to grow at 6.4 and 6.9 percent in 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively, while Nepal’s growth is expected to be at 3.9 percent this fiscal and at 4.7 percent in the next financial year. Pakistan’s economy will grow by 3.4 percent in the current fiscal and at 4 per cent in 2022-23, the report said.

Incidentally, as per the first advance estimate released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation on January 8, India’s GDP growth is likely to be 9.2 per cent in the current fiscal.

The projection is lower than the forecast by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which had in December said that the GDP growth rate is likely to be 9.5 percent for the current fiscal.

Global growth forecast downgraded to 4.1%

The global economy is on track to grow by 4.1 per cent in 2022, down 0.2 percentage point from a previous projection, the World Bank Group said in its latest Global Economic Prospects release.

“The global recovery is set to decelerate markedly amid continued Covid-19 flare-ups, diminished policy support, and lingering supply bottlenecks,” the semiannual report added on Tuesday.

The global outlook is “clouded by various downside risks,” including renewed Covid-19 outbreaks due to new virus variants, the possibility of unanchored inflation expectations, and financial stress in a context of record-high debt levels, according to the report.

After rebounding to an estimated 5.5 per cent in 2021, global growth is expected to decelerate markedly to 4.1 per cent in 2022, the report noted. The latest projection for 2021 and 2022 is 0.2 percentage point lower than the June forecast, respectively.

The report also noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has raised global income inequality, partly reversing the decline that was achieved over the previous two decades, Xinhua news agency reported.

By 2023, annual output is expected to remain below the pre-pandemic trend in all emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) regions, in contrast to advanced economies, where the gap is projected to close.

Preliminary evidence suggests that the pandemic has also caused within-country income inequality to rise somewhat in EMDEs because of particularly severe job and income losses among lower-income population groups, according to the report.

“The world economy is simultaneously facing Covid-19, inflation, and policy uncertainty, with government spending and monetary policies in uncharted territory,” said World Bank Group President David Malpass.

Noting that rising inequality and security challenges are “particularly harmful” for developing countries, Malpass added that putting more countries on a favourable growth path requires concerted international action and a comprehensive set of national policy responses.

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