Building the Falcon Economy, Part I

[Music] thank you so much uh all of you for being here for this session and I'm very grateful to his Excellency for giving us his time and I'm looking forward to your insights we we're talking about the the Falcon economy we're talking about the Emirate and city of Abu Dhabi and the the premise that uh there has to be a tradeoff when you're looking rapid economic growth more companies more investment more people that that will have an impact on the livability of a place I mean perhaps I could get your thoughts on on this do to what extent do you agree that there there has to be a trade-off between livability and economic growth and economic success well uh good afternoon everyone I'm glad I'm here today and thank you uh for having me uh we just touched P me and you about the livability and the trade-off between economic and livability I think a lot of people understand that there is a tradeoff uh in Abu Dhabi we are trying to create a different blueprint and that blueprint is how you can rather than compromise you actually complement the economic development the Technology Innovation using the livability part of the the city in creating a Thrive economy for for us to attract people to come and live work and thrive in Abu Gabi we have to create a proper environment around it either from connectivity using technology uh social aspect of it the community engagement and this is part of our leadership's aspiration of creating communities everybody would think that we have over 200 nationalities we have different demographics different salary brackets by understanding exactly what are the touch points the requirements if if of every demographics and us as a government working hand inand together with our stakeholders we would definitely be able to provide a complete livability program for them and this is what we've been doing for the last two years uh in 2040 for example we are anticipating that the population would double our GDP would double to have all of this you need to have a great livability program of attracting people the res and the citizens of Abu Dhabi so double the number of people in Abu Dhabi by 2040 so if if I take the data points to back up what you're saying up to this point Abu Dhabi yet again safest city in the world yet again most liable city in in the Mina region in terms of AI Readiness and so many other metrics Abu Dhabi is doing very very well so as we go towards that 2040 vision and we double the number of people here in your role you chairman of the Department of municipalities and transport you oversee also the regulatory Authority for the real estate you're on the the board of EAD Airways EAD Aviation Group for example there's so many uh roles that you have that you have this Vantage Point how do we ensure that the livability those metrics remain high as we go forward H including your point of of knowing what people want see who are my stakeholders my stakeholders are visitors of Abu Dhabi residents of Abu Dhabi people that want and find to find an opportunity in by by understanding who are my stakeholders we will be able to create a proper livability program for all of them as you said yes I am involved into thead the aviation industry I'm also uh within the uh land transport in terms ofad as well uh all of these working together you see the buzz now in Abu zabi you feel that buzz everybody's working towards one single Direction and that direction is how toe in our GDP contribution from n oil by doubling it doubling our population and to do that everybody around this amazing city under the leadership of His Highest Sheik Muhammad and she Khaled is that we all have to abide by specific values and provide the right components for people to come and live here in Abu Dhabi I'm not saying it's easy it's it's not impossible we've already been doing it I give you a very simple example every District in Abu Dhabi we have to come up with a single SC score with the requirements of every districts based on the community so we have to be as at a street level understanding the community by having a very strong engagement program with them and understanding their needs it's not only by providing schools or providing a proper Transportation Network it's all of the above and there is a lot of qualitative inputs that the government is trying to to uh enhance within those communities haam just touched upon some of the issues that are part of my domain as well in terms of what we signed last week in terms of the autonomous vehicles uh the autonomous vehicles program started during uh Formula 1 and it's already operational all of these technologies that we are getting from even stakeholders and local stakeholders around us are helping Department of municipality and transport in creating a a vibrant uh a global standard City for the people to reside and come and and live and work in abui so you talked about the the vision from the leadership at the top level um we talk about the execution day-to-day and and these aspects you mention bringing in technology bringing in urban planning and design in a kind of different mindset to that the world cannot work anymore on silos uh no one can succeed on their own track and and this is this is something that that people are find it maybe not necessarily natural to operate in but but this has to be your day-to-day reality oh yeah that's true uh it's not only uh working with my colleagues in other departments health authority uh education Authority all the different economic Authority that we work very close together as well we have to work with also uh non-government entities Salat for example or uh they are an important uh uh stakeholder that we need to work with we work with aad Aviation we work with private sector as well of curating these uh environment for the people uh private sector is actually a very important contributor to our livability and as a government we're also trying to make it much easier for the private sector to be part of not only the development in terms of ideas uh but also part of the investment and the return for the private sector and developing a lot of our infrastructure Abu Dhabi now in the next uh 5 to 10 years we have over 4 180 billion worth of infrastructure projects either from Road networks Transportation schools hospitals all of this the government can and can afford to develop it itself but we are trying to say no let's get the private sector part of this development because we see the aspirations of of of leadership in Abu Dhabi and we see the returns that are going going to come to the residents and the investors as well and and and of course the the Emirate of Abu Dhabi includes not just Abu Dhabi City but but Al and other uh you know uh hubs and when when you talk about the opportunities there is opportunities for procurement for smmes and startups and entrepreneurs as well as a chance to partner up the private sector on massive infrastructure projects I think you're you're also overseeing the um the the the infrastructure Center as well yes uh see abudhabi emirat includes three major regions Abu Dhabi Al and the western region and uh I manage the municipality transport within Abu Dhabi emirat uh but as an urban plan we need when we develop our Urban plan for 2040 which will be unveiled in the next uh two to three weeks it will tell you what are we going to do within these regions not everything is around Abu Dhabi City but we are also creating specific uh Urban Development within the different regions in ababi uh Abu Dhabi is over 67% of the United Arab Emirates so we have a vast uh geographical area but at the same time we have to create the network of how to get these people around because we're creating also our Urban plan based on our economic Falcon strategy which is being developed now uh so in a nutshell yes we have to look at all the regions in Abu ghabi uh taking into consideration that just a data point for everyone to understand is that by in 2024 the urban plan that we are developing for 2040 is doubling the population as we mentioned earlier but the previous plan that we had was by 2030 we would reach to our population 2.5 now and we are already we're ahead of schedule we are actually 2.5 we are six years behind because we haven't anticipated the influx of people the growth in population the growth in our economy which is a great uh Benchmark for us to actually beat because our 2040 is doubling this number now so everybody needs to work together to to reach that uh level of population and GDP obviously well I look forward to the next few years of accelerated uh development and planning your Excellency Muhammad Ali asraf thank you so much for your time and thank you all for being here thank you so much thank you [Music]