UAE economy remains very strong

The UAE economy has been registering strong growth and it will continue to grow, thanks to an outward-oriented development strategy adopted by its government, favourable business climate and infrastructure and industry-focused investments, a senior official said Thursday.

Joe Hogan, CEO of ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, said the UAE economy is very strong. "The country is investing very heavily right through the initial concerns that occurred in 2009. And that's been great. There's been very infrastructure-focused investments and also industry focused investments.

"So I think it's really helped in the sense of keeping the economy strong. We see strength here. We really believe in here and it's not just a short-term, but a long-term viability in the area. And we continue to put resources in here to take advantage of this," he told Gulf News.

Hogan, who joined ABB in September 2008, said ABB Group has extensive operations in the region.

Staff

"In the UAE, ABB has almost 1,000 people. Of that over 400 are engineers. So we have a very strong commitment in building our operations here. We see the business in the UAE will continue to grow. We strongly believe that we will have even bigger growth in 2010."

ABB has recently won an order worth $104 million (Dh382.5 million) from Fewa (Federal Electricity and Water Authority) to supply substations that will help increase power supplies in the northern emirates to meet a growing demand for electricity.

Hogan said ABB will continue to invest in the UAE, both in people and facilities. "I want to be here on a regular basis to truly understand the region and make sure we're making the right resource allocation."

Hogan said ABB will bid for all major projects in the UAE in their areas of specialisation.

He said for ABB, 2009 was obviously a typically recessionary year. "But we'll continue to aggressively pursue growth in emerging markets and opportunities globally to improve industrial productivity, lower energy consumption and tackle climate change. We were able to hold revenues about flat with 2008 and profitability was in line too."

Investments

He noted that there is something very important that relates to ABB in this region.

"We saw over 50 per cent of our orders now come from emerging markets. And that's a big change from what we did see two or three years ago. Look at the economies in 2010. US and Europe are very uncertain, but emerging economies just showed such a strength and great investments in infrastructure. That's where the future business can grow."

Frank Duggan, the group senior vice president and regional manager India, Middle East and Africa region, said the UAE ranks 5th among the top 20 countries in ABB's turnover.

"The UAE also host the headquarters for ABB in the Middle East and North Africa. We are one of the companies that have the most value added in the country and our commitment is here for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years."

Duggan said ABB's business in the UAE will be sustainable business. ‘We've a very optimistic view for 2010. We had a good sustainable business in 2009 and we continue to grow, expand our operations and to employ more people in the operations in the UAE."

The ABB Group of companies operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people.