Facilitating Access To Trade

Sir Massimo Falcioni CEO of Etihad Credit Insurance highlights the importance of the UAE’s (4IR) strategy for manufacturing businesses

At the first-ever Make it in the Emirates Forum, Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI) emphasised how fostering innovation, driven by breakthrough technology could strengthen UAE’s 4IR strategy and help position the country as a manufacturing powerhouse by creating a sense of pride in locally made products.

The UAE launched its manufacturing strategy to markedly raise its contribution to the country’s GDP within a decade. The growth of the manufacturing sector is also crucial to advance the UAE’s economic diversification strategies and equip the country for the post-oil era. Therefore, ECI identified the most important issue the companies face in their growth journey — the shortage or hardship in securing financing support for their capital and cash flow requirements.

The Federal entity addresses these challenges by providing innovative trade insurance and financing solutions to prosper in a competitive marketplace and leverage the advanced digital technologies to improve productivity and embrace sustainability. ECI’s solutions enable the UAE companies to focus on new product innovations in the spirit of the Make it in the Emirates initiative, leading to more job creation and improved income generation throughout the country. The repayment guarantees extended by ECI to commercial banks in the UAE give them massive incentives to lend to businesses in order to help them acquire leading-edge digital production (ADP) technologies that are the mainstay of the 4IR.

These technologies and machinery can increase production efficiency and act as a catalyst to maintain sustained industrial competitiveness and the advancement of the manufacturing sector. They not only improve the efficiency of the production process, but also help companies reduce their carbon emissions and energy consumption, making a huge contribution to environmental sustainability — a key objective of ECI in relation to the UAE’s sustainability agenda.

In addition, with the enhanced trade security and access to funds, as well as reduced cost of finances due to government-backed guarantees, ECI remains one of the main pillars of generating tremendous investment opportunities and attracting enhanced FDI inflows to the UAE’s manufacturing sector