The Interim Committee held its fourth meeting virtually chaired by the Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri with the objective to discuss the effects of Covid-19. The committee also discussed the efforts required on a national level to support the economy and steps required to minimize the impact of pandemic on businesses in the country.

The teleconference meeting commenced with address by Al Mansouri in which he stressed on the importance of efforts on a national level and the role of committee to formulate an effective set of initiatives and actions in order to safeguard the national economy and also to ensure the business progression in the country.

He further added that the decisions by committee would lead to release of various national incentive packages which would be utilized to support the most affected sectors. The measures would be targeting the pandemic effects curbing on the specific sectors, especially Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, tourism sectors, trade and manufacturing sectors.

The Chairperson Al-Mansouri highlighted the fact that UAE’s economy has proven to be resilient at the times of pandemic and has successfully met the challenges in the past. The diversity and competitive attributes of UAE are the reason for its capabilities to overcome economy hurdle in the region.

Among the various topics discussed in the meeting, the prime agenda included the disbursement of economic stimulus package extended by the Central Bank of United Arab Emirates that benefitted from approximately 84.5% of the total incentives for total 25 national banks. Out of these, 15 banks withdrew 100% of their shares for over 133,000 customers, the majority of which were small and medium sized companies.

The committee is also set to evaluate the distribution of packages, increase in lending rates, support for small and medium sized companies and entrepreneurs, and reduction in credit card interests. This will have a direct course of impact on business sector, SMEs, wholesalers and retailers.

The committee would be working on ways to protect the wages by coordinating with the Ministry of Human Resources and Settlement and the Central Bank of the UAE. The plan of action for this would include allocating a part of incentive package towards workers’ wages and include Abu Dhabi’s experience that has launched 33 two-stage incentive packages for supporting the small and medium sized enterprises’ banking facilities for supporting their workers’ wages.

The Interim Committee reviewed a report on incentives by government agencies to Dubai’s business sector during the pandemic crisis. The review included incentives taken till June 7, 2020 along with discussions regarding initiative proposal by Ministry of Economy in relation to macroeconomic support, business continuity and finance.

The meeting included the comprehensive policy discussion for supporting the tourism sector in multi-stages of precautionary measures, recovery and growth. Also the proposals extended by Ministry of Energy and Industry for supporting UAE medical products were discussed during the Interim Committee meeting.