Bin Touq: Investopia summit aims to drive global investment and accelerate innovation

The inaugural Investopia summit will prepare the world for a post-pandemic era, said Abdulla bin Touq, UAE Minister of Economy. “We are proud to start a discussion to drive global investment, accelerate innovation and contribute to the growth of future generations,” the minister said, opening the summit along side the World Government Summit in Dubai on Monday.

“We want to create a dynamic business ecosystem where today’s economies grow and tomorrow’s are born. We have come together to mark a new beginning.” Investopia is one of the events within the first set of the Projects of the 50 developmental and economic initiative announced by the government in 2021.

It is the first platform that unifies all national investment opportunities and development projects from all emirates in line with the initiative. “Future generations will be living in a world that is very different to the one we are accustomed to. It is essential that we prepare ourselves and our children for that new world,” Mr bin Touq said. As the investment world is on the hunt for returns, the future lies in the global investment community to grow together as one, he added. The Investopia summit explores “how global growth hubs are shifting and how globalisation is changing in the midst of geopolitical developments”, the minister said. Although the world has seen a strong recovery from the coronavirus, rising inflation has led to higher food, energy and fertiliser prices which are hitting the developing world harder as they have limited fiscal space, Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said during a separate panel discussion at the Investopia summit.

“A total of 104 countries are net importers of food. Russia and Ukraine account for 30 per cent of global wheat production and 20 per cent of barley and maize output,” she said. “The UN projects that there will be an increase of 30 million undernourished people in the world on top of Covid-19 and climate change. The price rises will hit the vulnerable the most.”

The world will see more regionalisation, shorter global value chains and more diversification of sources of input, the Unctad official said.

Meanwhile, Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner, SkyBridge Capital, said that “globalisation is very far from dead” and the global supply chain will be disrupted less in 2023. “We need each more now than before. It’s easy to be pessimistic about the global economic outlook, but there is good reason to be positive with the introduction of artificial intelligence, vertical farming and biotechnology.”

While world leaders have come together to optimally allocate resources, young people are using technology to decentralise how the world functions, he said. “For instance, blockchain takes power from people who use it in a malevolent way.”

Greece had the second-largest growth in gross domestic product in the EU in 2021, Spyridon-Adonis Georgiadis, Minister of Development and Investment, Greece, said at the summit. “We were expecting economic growth above 5 per cent in 2022 before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, we expect growth in the range of 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent,” he said.

Greece recorded strong foreign direct investment in 2021 in the areas of renewable energy, logistics, real estate, tourism, agriculture and manufacturing, the minister added. “We are not so dependent on Russia’s natural gas, so the impact of energy prices on our economy is not large.”