Dubai and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are to implement urgent reforms to address weaknesses in their financial systems, the head of Dubai’s Supreme Fiscal Committee said on Sunday.
The “committee ... is establishing a comprehensive program to address vulnerabilities in our financial system,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, who also heads Emirates Group.
“At a federal level, urgent steps are being taken to address the gaps in the UAE’s legal and regulatory infrastructure,” he said at the opening in Dubai of the two-day MENASA economic form.
“A clear framework for the financial restructuring and reorganization of companies, based on international principles, is being put in place” by the federal government, he said.
And “the [federal] government is set to issue a public debt law this year,” after which it will “establish a debt management office to coordinate the raising of debt for government-related entities,” he said. “A similar debt management unit is planned to be set up in Dubai to centralize debt decision-making.”
Dubai rocked global financial markets in November last year when it said it might need to freeze debt payments by its largest conglomerate Dubai World, stoking fears of a state default over sovereign debt.
The conglomerate said on Thursday that it had “in principle” reached an agreement with most of its lenders, but the proposal still requires the approval of its remaining creditors.
Dubai World’s total debt, including liabilities, is about US$60 billion. Dubai’s total debt is estimated at between US$80 billion and US$100 billion.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day