Page 401 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

374 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

development is the challenge of evaluating and managing the complex
interrelationships between economic, social and environmental objectives.” 2
Meeting the challenges of sustainability is vital both globally and locally.
According to the UN (2002), “. critical objectives for environment and
development policies that follow from the concept of sustainable development
include:

l reviving growth;
l changing the quality of growth;
l meeting essential needs for jobs, food, energy, water, and sanitation;
l ensuring a sustainable level of population;
l conserving and enhancing the resource base;
l reorienting technology and managing risk; and
l merging environment and economics in decision making.”
This chapter is devoted to the economic dimension of sustainability, some
of the macro- and microeconomic processes and interrelationships between
different financial and nonfinancial entities executing well-balanced public
policies leading to sustainable growth of the UAE. It refers to the effects of the
UAE policies rather than the policy itself.
The sustainable growth is supported by the following initiatives:

l issuing effective laws and legislations to encourage the business environ-
ment and develop national industries and exports;
l strengthening investments and promoting the small and medium businesses
sector;
l protecting consumer rights and intellectual property rights;
l diversifying trade activities under the leadership of qualified national
resources while adhering to international standards of excellence and the
tenets of knowledge economy, thus ushering in balanced and sustainable
3
growth for the UAE.
The UAE has a superb location for international trade, which makes it a
natural gateway into the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries of
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. The investment environ-
ment built a global reputation in an unprecedented length of time and dem-
onstrates how global business thrives with visionary leadership and
commercial cooperation thanks to sustainable growth policy. The UAE re-
mains the region’s most attractive destination for foreign investment. The
country ranked 27th among 142 countries in the Global Competitiveness
Index (2011e12), where it was the only Arab economy categorized as
innovation-driven, and 33rd among 183 countries in the ease of doing

2. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2002).
3. Ministry of Economy, United Arab Emirates: http://www.economy.ae/English/Pages/
VissionAndMission.aspx.