Marasi 28

IN-DEPTH
Is the UAE maritime market
ready for investment?
For the first of its kind in the UAE, “The UAE Maritime Leaders Roundtable Discussion” brings world’s attention
to the benefit of the UAE’s state-of-the-art maritime infrastructure and its investment capabilities, supporting
the UAE national agenda to be the best destination in the maritime industry
By Effat Mostafa
Under the patronage of the Federal Transport Authority
for Land and Maritime “FTA”, Tactics Maritime Media and
Marasi News have successfully arranged “The UAE Maritime
Leaders Roundtable Discussion” under the theme of
“Leading the UAE towards being a preferable destination
for maritime investment”. The event brought together
prominent UAE maritime leaders who discussed the status
of the UAE maritime industry and the main obstacles
that are facing the existing investors and to what extent
these challenges may hinder any potential investment.
H.E Eng.Hessa Al Malek, CEO of
Maritime Transport at FTA: “The
UAE has maintained its leading position
among the most attractive maritime
business environment, in addition
to climbing to sixth place in 2017
from seventh in 2015 on the list of
the future leading maritime capitals.
These achievements demonstrate
the UAE’s global competitiveness and
progress toward the government’s
ambitious vision of transforming the
UAE into the world’s top maritime
centers. We will prioritize all the major
challenges that were addressed from
the main maritime key players as we
are keen to strengthen the joint efforts
between both government and
private sectors to achieve a common
vision to boost the UAE’s leadership
in the maritime sector”
H.E Khamis Buamim, Board Member,
Group CEO and Managing
Director of Gulf Navigation Holding:
“We are expecting the growth of
non-oil sector to reach 3.1 per cent
this year and 3.5 per cent or even
more next year. Despite the continuous
decrease in oil prices, the national
economy has been able to sustain the
growth due to a diversified economy.
The UAE ability to attract the major
ship owners requires careful consideration
of the key aspects that these
players are looking for in a host country,
which is a combination of ease of
doing business, favorable and predictable
policy framework, availability
of maritime technology and levels of
openness and information sharing. In
order to attract more business opportunities,
we need to create progressive
law of VAT with a specialized
line for the shipping industry. The
new law needs to sort out insurance,
labor, immigrations and all issues to
emphasize their credential and help
them. We need to create new invest-
36 MAY - JUNE 2018