The Department of Economic Development has issued a decision to form an internal committee to empower women in the economy, with the aim of achieving its role to support women’s entrepreneurship in Abu Dhabi, in co-operation and co-ordination with relevant local authorities, most notably the Family Development Foundation, the Abu Dhabi Business Women Council and others.

Based on this decision, the committee will be tasked with many roles and responsibilities, which aim to achieve the Department’s role to support and empower women in the private sector, especially female entrepreneurs in Abu Dhabi.

The committee will work to facilitate communication with government and quasi-government authorities and the private sector in Abu Dhabi, to support women in the business sector.

Khalifa bin Salem Al Mansouri, Acting Under-Secretary of the Department of Economic Development in Abu Dhabi, stated that women in the Abu Dhabi community have become a major and important foundation of the local economic system, and an effective element of local entrepreneurship, through their noticeable successes in the business world during previous years.

He added that the UAE’s female citizens represent 65 percent of the total number of businesswomen in Abu Dhabi, while the percentage of businesswomen from various Arab nationalities is 20 percent while 9 percent of businesswomen are from Asian countries, and 6 percent are from other countries, according to the latest results of an Abu Dhabi Business Women Council report from the Department of Studies in the Department of Economic Development, in co-operation with the Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi.

He also clarified that businesswomen have the ambition and will to participate in economic development, despite their family commitments and the challenges they face in managing their projects, which will be reviewed and monitored by the newly-established committee to support women’s economic empowerment.

He added that the most important challenges faced by businesswomen in Abu Dhabi, based on the latest results from the Abu Dhabi Business Women report, especially regarding managing their projects, include providing adequate technological infrastructure, the difficulty of opening up new markets, the ability to financially and administratively manage their establishments, receiving the necessary funding and the rise in the cost of services, attracting qualified employees and the increase in rental costs.