Dr. Mohammed Khalfan bin Khirbash, UAE Minister of State for Finance and Industry will be leading a delegation from the Ministry to this weekend’s World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting to be held at the Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt from May 20 to 22, 2006.
Dr. Khirbash said that the WEF Middle East meeting has a very timely theme this year - The Promise of the New Generation – which will spark discussion on creating a new and bright future for the youthful population of the MENA region as well as help direct the agenda of action in the coming years. The focus of the three-day event will be the regional business agenda; the rule of law and democracy; the challenge of employment and migration; peace, security and international relations; and youth, culture and identity in the Middle East.
Dr. Khirbash will be joined at the WEF meetings by the UAE Ambassador to Egypt His Excellency Ahmed Al Zaabi. The delegation includes Mr. Khalid Bustani, Assistant Under Secretary for budget and revenue, Mr. Faisal Al Mansoori, Director of Investments, Mr. Nasser Khamis, Director of Minister’s Office, Dr. Hamed Nasser, Expert Economic Consultant.
The Ministry of Finance & Industry (MoFI) delegation from the UAE will also be attending the steering group meeting of the Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) which takes place on May 19 and 20th as well as the Ministerial meeting of Finance Ministers of countries from the G8 nations and the MENA region to be held on May 21st.
The Steering Group meeting of the OECD will be focusing on good governance for economic development in the Arab countries with particular focus on reform initiatives and best practices. The MoFI team will also be leading discussions in the special working group tasked to drive the agenda on “Governance in Public Finance.” The UAE’s experience of being the first country in the MENA region to implement performance based budgeting will be shared with counter parts from the region and best practices from other OECD countries will also be discussed at the meeting.
The delegation will also discuss at the OECD meeting, the recent experience of establishing Hawkama – the first Institute for Corporate Governance in the region being set up by a group of international institutions led by the UAE Ministry of Finance and Industry and supported by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Union of Arab Banks (UAB), Dubai School of Government (DSG), Young Arab Leaders (YAL), and the Institute of Management Development (IMD). .
Hawkama aims to promote corporate sector reform and good governance, assist the countries of the region in developing and implementing sustainable Corporate Governance strategies, with the aim of facilitating the economic and financial integration of the region with the rest of the world.
The Meeting of Finance Ministers of the MENA countries with their counterparts from the G8 nations is a follow up of the recent “Forum of the Future” session held in Morocco. The meetings which will be focused on the economic development agenda in the MENA region will also be attended by high level representatives from the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), IMF, OECD and IFC.
