The UAE

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken a quantum leap during the past 15 years in the direction of liberalizing its economy and diversifying it away from the oil-based sector. In 2005, the Networked Readiness Index, a joint project by INSEAD and the World Economic Forum, which evaluates the relative level of ICT development in 104 countries, ranked the UAE 23rd. ¹ In 2006, the Index of Economic Freedom, a joint project by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranked the UAE 65th worldwide, 3rd among the Arab states after Kuwait which ranked 50 and Saudi Arabia with a rank of 62. ² This index measures how well a country scores on a list of 50 variables divided into 10 areas of economic freedom. These include trade policy, banking regulations, fiscal burden, foreign investment codes, monetary policy, and black market. The various measures and incentives created by the government have helped the country move steadily and consistently into the direction of an information/knowledge based society. In this respect, and recently, the UAE has emerged as the forerunner in the Arab region and is among the top information technology (IT) users in the world, based on the classification issued by the US’ IDC Group. In its global Information Society Index (ISI) for 2005, the World Times/IDC ISI ranks the UAE thirty-two (32) overall out of 53 countries, by evaluating 23 indicators measuring the capacity of a nation’s citizenry to exchange information internally and externally. These 23 indicators are classified into four different categories: (1) computer infrastructure, (2) Internet infrastructure, (3) information infrastructure, and (4) social infrastructure. ³ The Index measures the country’s achievements in IT and related fields, the 660level of use and its readiness to cope with IT developments. Only four Arab countries are listed among the top 53 countries in IT readiness. The ISI establishes a standard by which all nations are measured according to their ability to access and absorb information and IT. While gross domestic product (GDP) measures economic wealth, ISI measures information capacity and wealth. The ISI is designed to help countries assess their position relative to other countries and to guide companies to future market opportunities.