The United Arab Emirate’s Ministry of Economy (MoE) has signed an agreement of cooperation with the Harvard University’s Growth Lab to develop a two-year program under which university’s top academicians will help the emirates build evidence-based economic analyses and will also help in making new economic models for the country, the ministry said on Tuesday, December 14.
Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy, signed this agreement in a virtual meeting along with Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Professor Ricardo Hausmann, Director of Harvard Growth Lab.
Professor Robert Lawrence and other officials from the Harvard University and from several UAE national universities also participated in this virtual signing ceremony.
According to the terms of MoU, the Harvard Growth Lab is to allocate resources to support the research development of growth, trade, investment, competition, and other areas of sustainable growth.
This agreement is expected to add designing and implementation of policies aim to build research skills, capabilities and strengthening the use of data in data-based research and analysis.
The Growth Lab in Harvard University focuses on four main areas: economic complexity, the growth diagnostics, inclusive growth, skills and human capital.
Bin Touq stated, “The partnership with Harvard University’s Growth Lab falls in line with our efforts to develop a new model for the formulation of future economic policies according to a proactive and flexible approach, in partnership with the national universities and the global academic community.”
He added, ‘’The new agreement represents a major milestone that paves the way towards the establishment of the ‘UAE Growth Lab’, which was launched Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, during his visit to the Ministry’s headquarters last June.
He went on to say: “The lab is based on three main pillars, namely, the cooperation program with four leading national universities, including the United Arab Emirates University, Zayed University, the American University of Sharjah, and New York University Abu Dhabi, in addition to the cooperation agreement between MoE and the University of Birmingham in UK to provide academic and research support for UAE’s economic development policies and initiatives.”
For his part, Hausmann stressed the importance of cooperation between the Lab and the Ministry of Economy in creating a roadmap for promoting this trend in the coming time through implementing the new research, policies and innovative programs.