Arab governments should reduce their roles as the major player in their economies, said the panelists in the CNN CEO debate at the Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2007.

Dr Nahed Taher (founder and CEO - Gulf One Investment Bank), Dr Saad Al Barrak (deputy chairman and managing director - Zain (formerly MTC) and Mustafa Al-Saleh (deputy chairman & managing director - ADEEM Investment Company) reached this consensus while discussing the potential of the Arab World Going Global.

Dr Taher highlighted the mining, petrochemical, transportation, utilities and communications sectors as industry fields in which regional companies have a chance of becoming global players. “Regional companies need to focus on these sectors to develop competitive advantages to perform on a global level” she said. Commenting on the role of Arab governments, Dr Taher pointed out that the growing trend towards public-private-partnerships (PPP) to facilitate large infrastructure projects was a step in the right direction. “Governments are realising that a business approach needs to be taken to ensure efficiency. This is something which they are learning to adapt to,” she said. In terms of progress in this regard, “Saudi Arabia has the most privatised economy in the GCC,” she added.

Stressing the need for a reduced role of governments, Dr Saad Al Barrak said governments in the region play a much too crucial role in their economies. “They own many assets and, at the same time, also have control over the regulations. For the private sector this means operating in a government-dominated and controlled economy,” he said. He gave an example of the Kuwaiti government not being happy with Zain’s decision to relocate its headquarters to Bahrain, which was part of a strategy to make Zain “the first communications company in the world to make it into the global list of top 100 companies”.

Mustafa Al-Saleh noted that the largest assets in the region’s economies are still owned by the governments and called for more privatisation. “The private sector should be given a greater role in society.” He called for the continued implementation of reforms and suggested that “to take the region forward, politics needs to be separated from economics”. The fight against corruption should be prioritised, he said, naming corruption as a major issue affecting development in the region.

Other issues debated by the panel were the prevailing unemployment and the raise of poverty as potential causes for social unrest in the region; the need for a judicial reform and the setting up of commercial laws and courts to facilitate business on a global standard; the need to foster the development of small and midsize enterprises and necessity to develop the production sector.-TradeArabia News Service