India can provide a growth model for Arab world, says Sheikha Lubna

"We can learn from it. It has achieved high economic growth despite problems like rapidly increasing population growth."

Sheikha Lubna was taking part in a discussion on the second day of the on-going Arab Strategy Forum in a session on 'Globalisation of Economies and Business in 2020 - The Future of Economic and Financial Reform in the Arab World.'

Sheikha Lubna was joined by George T Abed, Former Director, Middle Eastern Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF). He suggested that investing heavily in English-language education can help the Arab world achieve economic growth.

Speaking with reference to the outsourcing industry, Abed said India has achieved economic growth and huge successes in the outsourcing industry largely due to its investment in education, specifically English education.

Abed said that unemployment will continue to be a major problem affecting the Arab world. "With just 4 per cent growth in the next few years, the inability of paltry economic growth to generate jobs and the competition faced from India and China, the number of unemployed in the Arab world will rise to 26 million."

He said that there were four key impediments to economic growth in the Arab world: Bloated governments, lack of modern institutions, underdeveloped financial institutions and absence of active capital markets.

Equal Opportunities
According to Rudiger Grube, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Chrysler Germany, speaking at the second session of the second day of the Arab Strategy Forum, the Arab world needs to provide equal opportunities to its citizens to become a political and economic power.

Giving his prescription for the development of the Arab region into a force to reckon with, Grube mentioned six "pre-requisites": "Political stability, widespread access to education, inclusion of women in political, economic and social life; reduction of bureaucracy, increase in transparency and a stop to externalisation the Arab world's problems."

The session discussed a diverse range of issues including the major initiatives for economic reform, the fundamental changes required to attract local and foreign investment, redeployment of privatisation revenues for development and the need to redefine the role of government.

The planned economic integration of the Arab region will benefit all countries of the region, said Naguib Sawris, Chairman, Orascom Telecom, Egypt.

He said that though there are great differences in the countries in the Arab world, but all countries can benefit from integration. Competitive interests need not prevent effective integration of the Arab region, he said and cited Dubai as a model that the Arab world could learn from.