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ABU DHABI/ WAM
The United Arab Emirates has been ranked first globally for the third consecutive year in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report for the year 2023-2024.
This achievement is significant as the country recorded a rate of 7.7, a record number in the history of the report. The UAE was recognised as the best place worldwide to start and conduct new business ventures, surpassing many advanced economies.
The report highlighted that the UAE excelled in 12 out of 13 indicators globally, including areas such as funding for entrepreneurial projects, access to financing, market entry ease, infrastructure, research and development, knowledge transfer, government programmes, supportive policies, taxation, education, and cultural standards.
The country also ranked third globally in the indicator of physical infrastructure.
Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy, expressed pride in the UAE’s achievement, attributing it to the country’s focus on entrepreneurship and support for small and medium-sized enterprises to build a competitive knowledge economy based on innovation and new economy concepts.
He added, “Today’s result reflects the integration and strength of the policies launched by the UAE to create a nurturing environment for entrepreneurship and provide a conducive climate to support and accelerate the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises and startups, especially those based on innovation, creativity, and new technologies.”
He noted that this result aligns with the targets of the UAE Vision 2031 to become the global hub for the new economy by the next decade, given the importance of the entrepreneurship model in developing projects and activities in various sectors of the new economy, such as technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, space, financial technology, and others.
Bin Touq highlighted the UAE’s efforts in transforming the entrepreneurship environment through policies like the “Entrepreneurship Hub” and the Nafis programme, providing incentives and support for small and medium-sized enterprises to access global markets and foster innovation.
In detail, the report pointed out that the UAE has made significant investments to enhance the competitiveness of its entrepreneurship environment, doubling the levels of entrepreneurial activity in the early stages. Moreover, it provided ideal support for women entrepreneurs, creating an entrepreneurial and stimulating environment for them, enhancing their access to resources and capabilities, leading the country to be among the top 5 economies globally in supporting female entrepreneurship.
The report further explained that the UAE has made significant progress in the entrepreneurship education indicator in schools, particularly in stimulating skills such as creative thinking, problem-solving, opportunity recognition, and risk assessment among students. The country ranked among the top 5 out of 49 countries in this aspect.
Additionally, the UAE was also ranked first globally in the same report on the “National Entrepreneurship Context Index” (NECI), which monitors the supportive environment for entrepreneurship in each country based on a score of points according to the opinions of national experts in the field of entrepreneurship. This contributes to the UAE’s vision of reaching one million small and medium-sized enterprises by 2031.
According to the report, India ranked second, Saudi Arabia third, Lithuania fourth, Qatar fifth, Estonia sixth, Netherlands seventh, South Korea eighth, Switzerland ninth, and China tenth.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is considered one of the most important global references in entrepreneurship for countries and international organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and United Nations affiliated organisations.
The report’s methodology focuses on achieving three goals: measuring differences in entrepreneurial activity across the world’s economies, understanding the entrepreneurial ecosystem and revealing the factors affecting it, and proposing policies to enhance and develop the level of entrepreneurial activity.