Raft of business laws expected to buoy UAE economy

Changes to businesses and economic activity are expected to appear within the next few years as the government passes a record number of bills to the Federal National Council.

Sultan bin Saeed al Mansouri, the UAE Minister of Economy. Silvia Razgova / The National

ABU DHABI // Businesses will be underpinned by a strong new legal foundation as a raft of legislation comes before the Federal National Council.

The Minister of Economy, Sultan Al Mansouri, told the Federal National Council last year to expect 11 bills from his ministry in the next few years.

Several have already come from the Cabinet, with a number of debates scheduled. The FNC has already debated the Commercial Companies Law and a Small and Medium Enterprises law.

It next expects a bill on investments that could allow majority foreign ownership and another on managing the accounting profession.

Aside from proposing amendments to the bills, the council’s finance, economic and industrial committee has a busy year ahead, with a number of general topics up for debate with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Finance, touching on business and economics-related aspects of the country.

Obaid Al Tayer, Minister of State for Finance Affairs, was summoned to the council more than any other minister last year as members inquired about Islamic banking, a lack of governance over banks for personal debt and loans, and interest rates.

Ali Al Nuaimi (Ajman), the deputy head of the committee, said they were putting the final touches on an important report scrutinising the Central Bank, which will include a section on debt.

Other topics up for discussion include the policies of the stock exchange and the national statistics centre.

“We will be facing a lot of challenges in the committee with the large amount of work, but we hope to achieve what we can,” Mr Al Nuaimi said. “We are very optimistic that there will be vast improvements in the economy by the end of all this.”

He said Mr Al Tayer had already told the FNC that GDP was expected to grow 4.5 per cent by the end of the year. If Dubai is awarded Expo 2020, the economy would improve even further.

“The better it is, the better it would be for citizens’ welfare,” Mr Al Nuaimi said. “This is the leadership’s main aim – the happiness and welfare of its citizens and residents. Within the next five years we expect to witness big jumps in the economy, with helpful legislation.”

The committee’s next task is to go through the federal budget for next year and bring it to the council for debate on December 24.