Embracing The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Attendees at this year’s Sharjah FDI Forum learned how the world’s next big step forward would have an impact on investment and our daily lives

The third edition of the Sharjah FDI Forum in many ways represented the emirate’s growing status as a foreign direct investment (FDI) magnet within the context of the wider UAE

Sharjah attracted a record Dhs912m ($248.2m) in FDI last year, according to figures released by Sharjah FDI in April, and in 2015 it accounted for a disproportionate percentage (38 per cent) of inflows to the country as a whole.

Looking to this year, Sharjah’s FDI flows are only expected to increase. Investment from abroad is expected to grow 15 per cent to exceed Dhs1bn ($272m) by the end of 2017. But beyond the immediate future, the emirate is also looking even further ahead to areas that could prove transformative to investment flows and business functions in the years to come.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution – a term first mooted by the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab – is set to transform the way we live work and relate to each other and was therefore a fitting of topic of this year’s forum.

“The extraordinary developments taking place because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have forced our lives to change in drastic ways, and forced us as government entities to ready ourselves and integrate solutions in our services that allow us to witness and experience new economic opportunities, attracting more dynamic forms of investments from entrepreneurs, a sector that has enormously adapted to the growing changes of the digital sector,” said Sharjah Investment and Development Authority chairperson Sheikha Bodour Bint Sultan Al Qasimi in her opening speech.