The Secretary General of the Union of Arab Chambers, Dr. Khaled Hanafy, participated as a panelist at the first working session held within the activities of " India CII Global Startup Summit: Enabling Robust Entrepreneurial and Innovation Ecosystems", entitled: " International best practices and strategies for developing conducive ecosystems for entrepreneurship and innovation."
Dr. Hanafy emphasized that "the Union of Arab Chambers is the true representative of the Arab private sector, which funds 75-80 percent of the gross domestic product and contributes to employing between 75-80 percent of the total workforce in the Arab world."
Hanafy pointed out to the existing coordination between the Union of Arab Chambers and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in support of entrepreneurs in the Arab world, noting that "in 2019 the Arab Rally competition" was organized on the sidelines of the International Entrepreneurship Summit and the 18th session of the Conference of Arab Businessmen & Investors in Bahrain, under a joint organization between UAC and UNIDO, where distinguished young energies from the Arab world participated to the competition, and presented prominent and important projects in promising sectors, especially in the sectors of science and technology.
UAC’s Secretary General revealed that after the success of the first edition of the "Arab Rally" award, the second edition will be organized this year, as the competition has gained official support from the federations of Arab chambers.
He added: "the Union of Arab Chambers, in partnership with the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), launched an initiative to support entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs in the Arab world. Noting that Egypt was the first step of this initiative, with the aim of spreading the experience and initiative to the rest of the Arab countries. This initiative was launched under the umbrella of the Presidency of the Egyptian Council of Ministers, the Egyptian Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Egyptian Ministry of Planning, the Central Bank of Egypt, the Egyptian Corporation for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMEDA), and the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce. The initiative started by selecting three pilot governorates in partnership with the local ecosystem that includes representatives from various stakeholders within the three governorates (Sohag, Minya, and Beheira) and identifying the most important priority investment sectors in light of Egypt's development plan.” The first phase of the initiative began with preparing cadres from three Governorates, who were selected according to international standards in preparation for assigning them to manage the entrepreneurship centers to be established in the chambers of commerce in the three governorates to serve the sons of the governorates who are entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium enterprises.
Dr. Hanafy explained that "the economic relations between the Arab countries and India are huge and very deep, as there are great Arab investments in India and vital Indian investments in countries extending from Oman and Saudi Arabia to Egypt, Sudan and abroad." Considering that "the Arab world is a major trading partner of India, and that economic relations revolve around technology and oil."
He also emphasized that "future cooperation will focus on promising sectors in the field of innovation, emerging projects, information technology, e-commerce, hospitality, logistics and other matters that could enhance the growth of added-value in the economic relations between India and Arab countries."
Source (Union of Arab Chambers)
