Kuwait- Vision for 2035

(MENAFN- Arab Times) KUWAIT CITY, March 20: HE Dr Nayef Al Hajraf, Minister of Finance, speaking at a special briefing session held by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development along with other members of the Council of Ministers, shed light on the progress and outlook of the Kuwait Vision 2035 and the National Development Plan 'New Kuwait'.

He shared that the development plan was launched by HH the Amir to make Kuwait capable of attracting investment, developing competitiveness, improving legislature to support the economic and social systems in this matrix through the 7 pillars that include effective public administration, sustainable diverse economy, enhanced infrastructure, sustainable living environment, high quality health care, creative human capital and enhanced global position.

He shared that several programmes and projects have been launched by different government entities to meet the seven pillars and these range from youth strategy, corruption, infrastructure, healthcare, to oil and renewable energy, among others. He shared that Kuwait had made vast improvements on global indices and international institutions monitoring and evaluating development. Kuwait's saw improvement in global ranking in four main pillars of financial market development variable as captured by the global competitiveness report 2017-2018. On curbing of financial waste, Kuwait moved up from rank 90 to rank 59, on Quality of Market Organization, Kuwait rose to 62 from 75, from Burden of government laws Kuwait moved up from 108 to 90 and on management quality of public funds from 57 to 54.

Kuwait also made great strides in the World Bank's Doing Business 2018 report index with the global ranking moving higher from 102 to 96. On the ease of starting a business, Kuwait held the 149 position from its past 173, on registering property it moved up to 129 from 144, on getting electricity installed it stepped up from 115 to 97, and on trading across borders from 157 to 154.

The Minister also shared Moody's change in outlook on Government of Kuwait's rating to stable from negative as well as Kuwait's Secondary Emerging Market status in the FTSE annual country classification review in recognition of the recent market enhancements implemented by the Capital Market Authority of Kuwait and Boursa Kuwait.

By Cinatra Fernandes Arab Times Staff

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