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Nahyan stresses importance of Mideast-Asia ties

"I fully support the premise of this forum: that the growing links between private business, governments, and people of the two regions of Asia and the Middle East have a great potential," the minister said in a keynote speech at the opening of The Middle-East Asia Leadership Forum that runs until today.

Organised through the executive programmes of BusinessWeek magazine and with the theme "Partnering for Success: Mastering Change, Leveraging Opportunity", the forum is under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Executive Council.

Meanwhile, some business leaders stressed the need for companies to have strong research and development (R&D) units, in order to pave the way for innovative ideas and products that guarantee big returns on investments. Shamsa Rashid, CEO of Forsa, a Dubai-based company that helps women invest in UAE's development, said having strong R&D initiatives in the country is a major challenge due to a small population and the lack of world-class learning institutions. "In this part of the world, that's a major challenge," she said during a plenary session on 'Open Innovation: Maximising Value from Creation Nets, Defining Successful Models'. "How do you create innovation with a small population?"

She stressed that noted centres of business innovation always have well developed academic communities, such as America's Silicon Valley having Stanford University nearby. Don Birch, president and CEO of Abacus International, Singapore, said R&D plays a very important part in innovation, which shouldn't be mistaken for creativity in doing things. Innovation, he said, is about managing data processes and ideas-and the execution of such.

Omar Hijazi, CEO of Tejari, an online marketplace in the Middle East, said there is not enough talent around to produce more innovative products and services. Thus, companies in the region must retain their talented employees by giving them incentives. "More can be done to educate people..." he said.

Shaikh Nahyan said that many countries in the regions are growing rapidly towards industrialisation, and that both Asia and the Middle East are determined to improve their business and economic co-operation at a time when "change is driven by competition and technology".

He cited the economic success of Dubai and the whole UAE as an example of the importance of having a stable economy where free trade and investment are encouraged. He also noted the role of leaders in supporting economic competitiveness and transparency in government transactions.