Regional economies should shed their “unhealthy” reliance on energy subsidies in manufacturing, the UAE Energy Minister said on Tuesday.
Suhail Al Mazroui was speaking in Abu Dhabi on the opening day of the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) in Abu Dhabi.
“The whole region needs to rethink energy subsidies when it comes to industry,” he said. “We cannot assume that manufacturing only works if it is provided with a subsidy. I don’t think that is healthy, I do not think that is sustainable. In the future we will compete on the basis of certain areas [where] we have a competitive advantage.”
Abu Dhabi is seeking to forge private sector industrial partnerships at the inaugural conference as it accelerates efforts to diversify its economy away from oil.
The country, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, has given more urgency in recent years to developing industry amid a steep drop in the price of hydrocarbons on world markets.
Sultan Al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy, told The National's sister paper Aletihad this week that Emirati investments in industry reached Dh112 billion in 2016, representing 86 per cent of total spending in the sector.
mkassem@thenational.ae
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