Central Bank awaits next step in Syria asset freeze

The UAE Central Bank is awaiting direct instructions from the Government before freezing Syrian assets here as part of sanctions agreed by the Arab League.

Saqr Ghobash, Minister of Labour, addresses the conference at the Yas Hotel yesterday. He predicted skilled workers would make up a greater proportion of the workforce.

ABU DHABI // The Central Bank is awaiting direct instructions from the Government before freezing Syrian assets in the UAE, as part of sanctions agreed by the Arab League on Sunday.

At the first of a series of question-and-answer sessions for foreign reporters, Sultan Al Suwaidi, the Governor of the UAE Central Bank, said it would depend on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations.

Mr Al Suwaidi said that "there are procedural issues, and the Government has to communicate this to us".

Reporters also questioned Mohamed Omar Abdullah, the undersecretary of the Department of Economic Development, about Abu Dhabi's nuclear power programme.

He said work was on track, and that the partial meltdown of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant following an earthquake and tsunami in March had prompted reconsideration of safety aspects.

"It has been useful for us to reconsider the safety aspects of this kind of project," he said, "but all international standards have been taken into consideration. Things are going to our satisfaction, and according to schedule."

Mr Abdullah described the building of the plant by a South Korean consortium as "a very strategic cooperation with Korea".

At a third session, Saqr Ghobash, the Minister of Labour, was asked about the number of unskilled workers in the UAE.

Describing the large number – two million – of unskilled labourers in the country as one of the ministry’s key challenges, he noted that only 266,000 of the 3,880,000 workers registered with the ministry had a university degree or higher.

He predicted the labour market would change, with skilled workers making up a greater proportion of the workforce.

No worker would be brought in if an Emirati was equally able to do the job, he said, adding that Europe and America had similar rules in place.

At the start of next year, a new national qualification authority will be established to authenticate all incoming workers’ qualifications.

Among other challenges, he said, was protecting labourers’ rights. “The wages protection system (WPS) was one way to tackle this issue,” he said. “If the company does not pay the worker for two months directly to the bank, the case can then be taken to court, and the labourer will be granted freedom to change jobs.”

Admitting that payment of wages was still not “100 per cent”, he said the WPS had “helped in a big way”.

He added that new laws have been in place since the beginning of the year to ease job transition, including the cancellation of the employer’s no-objection certificate and ending the six-month ban on re-employment after quitting a job.

When asked about the high unemployment rate among Emiratis – even when the country employs almost four million foreigners – the minister said the problem was not in the availability of jobs.

"The jobs are there, but there is an obvious difference in wages between the private and government sector," he said. "If we do not cooperate and find a solution for this, [Emiratisation] will continue to be difficult."

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