R.A.C.E - The Ministry of Finance

foreign [Music] excellencies ladies and gentlemen good afternoon I would like to begin by thanking Abu Dhabi Global Market for bringing together key institutions an important stakeholders to this inaugural edition of Regulation awareness collaboration ecosystem platform I look forward to this forum to certain pulses on the most important Trends Innovations and development in the world of sustainable finance and financing sustainability not probably the even greater challenges ahead your highness Excellency ladies and gentlemen the current market environment with increasing inflationary pressures Community prices among other aspects require us to actively collaborate in order to achieve better outcome and a more stable Financial Market environment for the ESG as we pursue our Net Zero Target our investments into carbon neutral projects increases the UAE has put activated the path toward the more sustainable future our country's vision for sustainable growth has been articulated through various National strategies and initiatives along with our International commitments aligned to the Paris agreement the Strategic net UA Net Zero by 2050 initiative was launched as a Mina Regional first to kick start an ambition Nationwide Drive to achieve Net Zero emission by 2050. along with the commitment itself comes the need to invest approximately 600 million Dirham or 160 billion dollar into renewable energy a smart and new mechanism to leverage private sector capital in nine with ESG standards will be critical the market will for for issued sustainable and instruments in 2021 alone stood more than 1.6 trillion dollar over the past years the total value of the domestic market for green so cook bonds and Loans has reached approximately 17 billion dollar in the UAE alone and estimated 1 trillion globally yet a lot remains to be done and the UA has embarked on a journey to invest into carbon dioxide emission reduction while leveraging the positive effect of relatively higher Community prices to create our future Readiness and reap the benefits of the economic benefits the green transitions accordingly we have established a sustainable Finance working group to support the development of a sustainable Finance in the UAE and facilitate regulatory cooperation among the UAE authorities the Ministry of Finance is working closely with local and international bodies including our active involvement and respective G20 working groups to devise policies that will advance sustainable social and economic development in line with our national aspirations aspirations that have been anchored in our agenda for almost a decade we have devised a series of strategies namely the UA Vision 2021 national green agenda 2015 2030 National Climate Change plan 2017-2050 the UA Net Zero by 2050. which helped to form a policy and Regulatory framework and have built the right stakeholder platform and support of the UAE path towards a more sustainable inclusive and impactful economy in a market with while ESG investment represents approximity one and a half of the foreign financing for emerging market excluding China we see sustainable Finance as more than just a deal enabler for sustainable projects it is a solution to mitigate and manage current and future risk associated with social environmental and climate risk yet it also comes with its own set of risks we need to manage as policy makers Financial stability risk related to different investors base relative to more traditional investors and potentially higher sensitivity to Global Financial conditions given the technology heavy composition of many ESG indices we need our continued attention our attention transactions risk mitigation the UAE has focused on achieving the sdg that would enable us to clean energy adequate and affordable food quality Education Health Care and sustainable economical growth healthy ecosystem and increased resource efficiency as all these issues are strongly interlinked and need to be achieved together at an estimated additional funding gap of 230 billion dollar annually in the Arab world alone consequently the UAE major focus on the cop 28 will be on increasing International Investment and vulnerable countries supporting their access to sustainable Finance while Insurance participation of the private sector and controlling government debt that ever risen to approximately 98 percent of global GDP during the covet 2019 pandemic looking at the opportunity size of the transition the studies suggested that green Finance can help unlock opportunities of approximately 2 trillion in economical growth and more than one million jobs in the GCC alone in addition businesses with a strong ESG propositions can support attractions and retention of key Talent while as we know and directly translates into improved company performance and the range of a 33 annually therefore it is imperative to adopt the right strategy and build adequate capacities to tap into such Prospect the UAE recognized early the value of sustainability for economic diversification for a better future for Next Generation established in 19 established in 2006 monster city is an example it is a city which relies on renewable energy another National project is the Muhammad Rashid solar Park which spreads over a total of approximately 77 square kilometer and it is one of the world's largest renewable Project based on Independent power producer model compared to 5 to 17 cents per kilometer hour in traditional fuels solar energy cost average between three to six percent per kilowatt hour and are trending downwards especially more effectively Technologies and in deployment of PPP models where we have to make future steps for cross-border projects an investment at attraction and investment protection Mazda was also signaled to another Lighthouse project for the region a joint announcement of windfall that produces approximately 48 000 Giga watt per hour of clean energy annually and offsets approximately 24 million tons of carbon emissions equivalent to around nine percent of total Egypt current carbon dioxide emission one of the challenges policy makers confront is how to make policy work for the inclusive green economy my vision is centered around formulating a green fiscal policy for example how to employ fiscal and budgetary tools to address environmental challenges we firmly believe that the alignment of fiscal policy with sustainable development priorities is a key driver of transition to inclusive green economy and certainly will soon be reflected in relative indicators we are determined to score high in sustainable competitiveness supported by various institutions and legislative and Technical framework including the UAE is sustainable Finance framework 2021 2023 2031. your highness excellencies and gentlemen we we are indeed at a Christian Crossroad to make the world a better place it guides us to advise ESG agenda and as a testament to our commitment to building a future for our children and children's children through sustainable Finance thank you again and I wish this event also success