Day: April 16, 2022

ABU DHABI, A UAE newspaper has said that fifty years after its inception, the United Arab Emirates continues to achieve a milestone after another, in almost all fields.

A small country with modest resources just few decades back, the UAE today is a key economic player internationally and the second largest Arab economy, after Saudi Arabia, with a GDP of $421.1 billion (AED1. 5 trillion).

“This young nation is one of the world’s top foreign aid donors,” said Gulf News in an editorial on Saturday, noting that the UAE is regularly cited worldwide as an effective example of crisis management such as was the case of handling the coronavirus pandemic.

The paper continued, “When it comes to foreign policy, the UAE has become in the past two decades a leading player in this region that has been working through active diplomacy and its principles of open dialogue and friendly relations with other key powers to maintain security, stability and prosperity in a region engulfed by conflicts and wars for the entire past 100 years.

“With these great accomplishments, come great challenges.”

“There are many challenges that we must deal with to maintain this success, especially since we live in a changing world and a complex region,” said Dr. Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to UAE President. “The secret of the UAE’s success,” he added “lies in its ability to identify challenges, deal with them, and turn them into opportunities.”

Gargash on Thursday gave a lecture, organised by Majlis Mohammad bin Zayed, under the title ‘Security and Stability in Our Changing World: A UAE Perspective’, at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

To protect and grow these remarkable achievements, the UAE’s formula for the coming decades, Gargash pointed out, “is based primarily on a strong united home front with a strong, efficient and professional military, establishing strong partnerships [regionally and globally], and focusing on economic development.”

Therefore, the UAE will continue to strengthen its relations with its strategic Arab depth in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League. And it will pursue the best relations with neighbouring Iran as well as Turkey and support the Palestinians’ rights through the continued support for the Abraham Accords.

In a rapidly changing world that is increasingly becoming multipolar, the UAE and its regional partners need to work hand in hand to ensure stability and prosperity and realise the aspirations of all peoples of this region, by rejecting the use of force in regional relations, rejecting the role of armed militias, and fostering cooperation and building regional platforms to strengthen economic and political cooperation.

“This is the blueprint of the UAE’s foreign policy in the coming decades, a formula that seek a prosperous region that will eventually discard past disputes in favour of constructive cooperation for the sake of today’s and future generations,” concluded the Dubai-based daily.

Source: Emirates News Agency

DUBAI, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) continued its journey of excellence and global leadership during 2021 and strengthened its position as one of the most distinguished utilities in the world in all fields. It has won 59 prestigious local, regional, and international awards, and set two world records in the Guinness World Records. In light of its new achievements, DEWA has accrued 383 awards (67 local, 67 regional, 249 global) since 2015 to the end of 2021.

One of DEWA’s most notable successes was achieving the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA) in the Elite Category in 2021. DEWA scored 850 in the evaluation, the highest score in the Award’s history since its launch in 1999, with 200 local and regional organisations taking part in this round. HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, honoured DEWA with five awards at the Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) Awards in 2021. The most prominent award is the Elite Award, which is awarded to government entities that score 600 points or more. Other awards include the Best Entity in the Emiratisation Field, Dubai Medal for Specialised Employee, Dubai Medal for Young Employee, and special recognition for the Unknown Soldier. DEWA won the 2020 Hamdan Bin Mohammed Program for Government Services Flag for its Smart Living initiative.

During 2021, Guinness World Records recorded two world records by DEWA. Guinness World Records confirmed DEWA’s Jebel Ali Power Generation & Water Production Complex is the largest single-site natural gas power generation facility in the world. The Complex has an electricity generation capacity of 9,547 MW. The second record was for the first 3D-printed laboratory in the world. The record was awarded for DEWA’s Robotics & Drone laboratory, housed within the Research & Development (R&D) Centre at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. DEWA seeks to set two new records for the tallest solar tower in the world at 262.44 metres and the largest 700-megawatt Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant in the fourth phase of the Solar Park.

Lowest electricity and water network losses Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, expressed his proud of DEWA’s achievements. He said that the successes of DEWA are the result of its work under the vision and directives of the wise leadership of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, whose aim is to make the UAE government one of the best in the world, and make the UAE the world’s leading nation by its Centennial in 2071.

Al Tayer noted that the DEWA’s record of prestigious awards is a translation of its relentless efforts that aspire to reach the top rank in all fields, and support Dubai’s efforts to become the city of the future. He added that DEWA’s successes confirm its global position in various fields of excellence and it has become a global reference in the development and application of the highest standards and practices of excellence in all its activities and operations.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque has been a leading destination for visitors of the major international events hosted by the UAE over the past six months, most notably Expo 2020 Dubai, the FIFA Club World Cup, the 5th UMEX and SIMTEX, the International Defence Industry Technology and Security Conference, Global Goals Week, which was held in cooperation with the United Nations, and the Food for Future Summit, in addition to World Space Week.

The number of visitors received by the mosque from October 2021 to the end of March 2022 was over 1.26 million.

The mosque was visited by many high-level delegations, and the number of delegation members from around the world received by the mosque was 2,452, who included presidents of states, ministers of foreign affairs, other ministers, ambassadors, consuls and speakers of parliaments.

The mosque also hosted 51 visits from local and international academic institutions, in addition to 293 visitors representing various international media outlets, including television stations in Argentina, Ecuador and Luxembourg. Brazil’s official television channel hosted a live broadcast from the mosque, highlighting its artistic aspects and its values of peace and coexistence.

The number of visitors who came for prayers at the mosque during this period totalled over 228,000 people.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque has kept pace with relevant events by drafting comprehensive plans according to high standards, to ensure its full readiness to receive the country’s international guests and provide them with a rich and comprehensive experience.

Field teams were formed to offer the best services to visitors, as well as specialist action teams that coordinated the schedules of delegations, in addition to part-time cultural tour guide teams. The mosque sponsored 2,596 cultural tours in Arabic, English, Spanish and Korean, and the number of reservations by tourism companies reached 13,667, involving 193,501 visitors.

The flow of visitors to the mosque helped promote its message of coexistence, tolerance and peace from the UAE to the rest of the world, based on the values of the Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, which are being strengthened and promoted by the UAE’s leadership.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Centre (SZGMC), an affiliate to the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, enjoys the support and the follow up of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs. It was established to represent a cultural and intellectual platform formed on the combined basis of cultural and national values. It serves as an iconic masterpiece reflecting the concepts and values of the late founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, deeply rooted in the sentiment of the nation, and constitutes an extension of the doctrines of the tolerant Islamic religion, and the core values that form UAEs national identity.

Source: Emirates News Agency