DCCI hosts Senior Vice-president of EDC

Poloz delivered a presentation titled "Creating Capacity for Growth" where he explained a number of significant economic issues and the horizons of the economic development between the UAE in general and Dubai in particular with Canada.

The session was attended by Hamad Buamim, DCCI Deputy Director General, Atiq J. Nasib, Director of DCCI Business Development Department. Among the attendees were also, Graham Rush, Canadian Consul General in Dubai, Jean-Francois Croft, Regional Manager, North Africa and Middle East, International Business Development, and a number of representatives for the DCCI member companies and university and college professors.

"This meeting constitutes an excellent opportunity to learn about the services EDC delivers and the scope of benefiting from them to develop the national economy and elevate the economic growth, as well as expand trade with Canada that is considered one the world's most developed nations," said Buamim.

Some of the issues Poloz discussed were:

Today, the economists are preoccupied with an emerging slowdown in the U.S. economy and wondering what it might mean for the rest of us. The U.S. consumers spend nearly 20% of all the money that is spent in the world. We can therefore expect other countries to be impacted.

Many economists have said that those effects will be minimal, that world economic growth will be sustained by strong growth in Europe, Japan, China and elsewhere, but there is little hope that growth will pick up enough in these other countries to offset the slowdown in the U.S.

Because of globalization of companies, the world is a much smaller place today. We are all more dependent on international trade. By way of illustration, there has been a 50% increase in the importance of international trade to the global economy since 1990.

The reason why international trade has grown so much in importance to us all is that our companies are using trade as a tool of supply, rather than simply a sales tool, as has traditionally been the case. Companies are disintegrating their operations, and relocating the individual components of their production chain in selected areas of the world, to reduce costs.

The result is a global product, where parts are made in various countries, international trade occurs to bring the parts together, the final product is assembled, and then it is marketed world-wide. In this process, the good is traded more than once, and this is why trade is so much more important to us today.

The result of this new trade paradigm, which we at EDC have called "Integrative Trade", is that international trade is growing at least double the pace of global GDP. This means that our infrastructure - ports, roads, railways, bridges, roads, airports, and so on - which usually have been built to accommodate years of economic growth, are seeing their usage rise at double the expected pace. That is why the strains are showing, and it is why we must continue to invest at a rapid rate in our infrastructure, despite the global slowdown we are forecasting for next year.

Asian economies are investing billions in their trade infrastructure, recognizing its importance. The major economies are doing so much more slowly. What this amounts to is a major opportunity for key facilitator economies, such as Singapore, or Hong Kong or, more recently, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Given your geographic location, your already important role in global trade, and your underlying desire to diversify your economy, it seems to me that the infrastructure being developed in this region will be put to good use.

And that is why EDC is here. Even if the world economy slows in the way I have described, investments in your infrastructure are likely to continue to be strong. And in those fields, whether in upstream/downstream oil, power generation, environmental technologies, ground transportation, medical care or telecommunications, Canada is a world leader.

As Canada's official export credit agency, EDC stands ready to help Canadian companies to develop their export business here in the Gulf region. We look forward to working with your companies to bring the right Canadian companies to you, and thereby help expand trade between Canada and the UAE.

Poloz concluded his presentation by highlighting Dubai's significance as a hub for the development of the trade and economic growth in the region thanks to the huge spending in the infrastructures, providing the elements that attract foreign investments like, political, economic, social and security stability, non-taxation, the freedom of transferring monies.