Statement by H.E. Mr. Ali Abdullah Sharafi, the Assistant Undersecretary for International Financial Relations Sector of the Ministry of Finance of the United Arab Emirate and the Temporary Alternate Governor for the United Arab Emirates to NDB at the 11th Board of Governors Annual Meeting

Your Excellency Minister Siluanov, Madam President, Excellencies, distinguished guests,

The United Arab Emirates extends its sincere appreciation to the Russian Federation for hosting us in Moscow for the 11th Annual Meetings of the New Development Bank. We also convey our gratitude to the New Development Bank for the excellent arrangements and warm hospitality.

I would like to begin by reaffirming the UAE’s steadfast commitment to advancing global economic cooperation and promoting multilateralism and constructive dialogue to address global growth and development challenges. We remain committed to promoting long-term economic growth and sustainable development, supporting platforms with active representation of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), and supporting an open, rules-based global trading system to advance our shared prosperity.

We fully support this year’s theme on financing development in an era of rapidly advancing technological trends. NDB’s role, as a global development institution created by EMDEs for EMDEs, remains highly relevant to ensure the benefits of new innovations are equitably distributed globally.

Emerging technologies are rapidly evolving and require a nuanced understanding. For example, AI offers a lot of potential to support sustainability, efficiency, resilience, and innovation in our economies, and NDB can support member countries in promotion of more resource-efficient and context-appropriate AI deployment models.

In particular, we believe it is critical for EMDEs to have enabling policies to attract and deploy these technologies, infrastructure advancement especially in telecommunications, and manpower capabilities to develop a capable workforce that can maintain and further advance these technologies. Given the varied levels of technological development and regulatory frameworks among NDB members, NDB can provide a platform, research collaboration, and best-practice, policy and governance dialogue.