By IANS,
Dubai : Kuwait is planning to turn itself into a global financial centre with the capacity to attract top foreign trade and investment.
The Gulf state’s next five-year plan – from 2009-10 to 2013-14 – would be aimed at allowing the private sector to spearhead an economic revival that would pivot around increasing the rate of competition among businesses, Kuwait’s State Minister for Housing and Economic Development Moudhi Al-Humoud told the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
Her remarks came after an extraordinary cabinet meeting late Thursday, which discussed the details of the next five-year plan.
Al-Humoud said one of the plan’s basic intentions was to upgrade Kuwait’s crumbling infrastructure and make available to the business community an environment that would buttress all their efforts to succeed in growing the economy and “the nation’s stature as a viable business and finance centre”.
Kuwait’s move is in line with that of other Gulf nations to diversify their economy to end their sole dependence on oil revenues.
The new plan, according to the minister, would try to achieve seven objectives: to increase the gross domestic product (GDP); to diversify sources of national income; to give ample room for the private sector to grow and lead the economy; to create means to bolster the private sector; to generate job opportunities; to boost technology and research; to update the nation’s bureaucracy; and to lay a firm foundation for a prosperous society.
Al-Humoud said that more meetings would be held to fine-tune the new plan.
Meanwhile, secretary general of the Higher Council for Planning Adel al-Wegayyan told KUNA that the plan also envisaged mechanisms to meet the projected increase in the nation’s population and realistic solutions for the oppressive traffic situation on the country’s highways and byways.
Asked about the difference between the country’s five-year plan and another plan called government work plan, he said that while the former lasted five years, the second lasted four years that equalled the constitutional duration for a government in regular session.
Elaborating, he said another difference was that the five-year plan has to be endorsed by the Kuwaiti parliament and be issued thereafter as a law, whereas the government work plan would require the approval of the cabinet and does not need a law to put it in force.