Dubai – United Arab Emirates (Emirates News Agency)

His Excellency Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, expressed his happiness to participate remotely in the opening of the Conference and Exhibition of Digital Economy Technologies – Seamless Middle East 2022 – this important event that the wise Emirati leadership has been organizing on an ongoing basis.

His Excellency the Secretary-General of the Arab League extended his sincere thanks and gratitude to His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the State, “may God protect him”, for his patronage and support for all Arab activities and meetings that promote Arab integration. He said: We have been keen in the League of Arab States to participate continuously in this conference since its launch, believing in the importance of this Emirati initiative in introducing the best practices and global experiences in the field of the digital economy. Clearly his role in spreading awareness and enriching the Arab debate in this regard.

His Excellency added: The global economy is going through delicate and extremely difficult circumstances, as the synchronization of two global crises has caused unprecedented repercussions, as the emerging Corona virus pandemic has left economic losses exceeding $12 trillion, and debt rates have risen to more than 351%, and the global growth rate has declined from 4.6 % to 3.3%, according to World Bank figures. He said that it is clear that these crises will last longer than expected, pointing out that the Arab region was not immune to these events.. as debt rates in Arab countries rose and inflation numbers increased with them, which caused the spread of unemployment and poverty.. He cited here the figure that It was mentioned in the Unified Arab Economic Report for the year 2020, issued by the League of Arab States, where it indicated that the number of poor people in the Arab world increased by 14 million to 115 million, which represents a quarter of the population of the Arab world.

production chains 

He said: These intersecting crises, although they cause human and economic losses..but they teach us lessons about how to deal with them in the future..and we have seen in this regard how digital technology has facilitated the continuation of the exchange of goods and services, the lack of disruption of production and supply chains, and remote work. , and other economic activities.. In this regard, digital technology provides important opportunities for building more resilient and competitive economies. He added: The acquisition and localization of digital technology is based on investing in and developing human capabilities, as it is important to establish the Arab renaissance on science, innovation and capacity-building as elements that contribute to getting out of the current crises, and allowing the exploitation of the latent energies that abound in the Arab region.

He stressed that the Digital Economy Conference and Exhibition is an opportunity to enhance the capabilities of Arab countries in the fields of digital technology, and exchange the best experiences, as it has become, thanks to the efforts of the organizers, an annual platform that brings together elite decision-makers in international and regional organizations and the private sector, and the work of this edition will witness the launch of the third edition of the Economic Index Report Prepared by the Arab Federation for the Digital Economy with the participation of international experts, it is a rich report that includes important topics and figures, and provides recommendations for policy makers during their preparation and implementation of digitization programs in Arab countries.. I invite everyone to view it and benefit from its content.

digital transformation 

He referred to some of the efforts of the League of Arab States in the field of digital transformation, as it is the most comprehensive field, as it includes, in addition to the digital economy file, the topics of policy-making, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and others, and in this regard, the recent period witnessed the launch of many initiatives in this regard, including the Arab strategy For cyber security, the proposal to form an Arab advisory council for artificial intelligence, the Arab guiding principles document for the smart university, and the update of the Arab communications strategy in cooperation with member states and some partners.

Watch: Video of the Secretary-General’s speech at the Seamless 2022 Conference