Latest news with #socialStability
Zawya
19-06-2025
- Business
- Zawya
UAE records remarkable housing achievements with support exceeding $13.62bln
ABU DHABI - The UAE continues to make remarkable accomplishments in the federal housing sector, enhancing its leadership in urban development and social stability, and strengthening its position among the best countries in the world in terms of quality of life. In H1 2025, the UAE Cabinet approved housing decisions for over 1,838 citizens, totalling AED1.2 billion as part of the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, which has provided assistance amounting to AED50 billion since its establishment to date. More than 93,000 Emirati citizens have benefited from this initiative so far, reflecting the country's commitment to empowering Emirati families and providing suitable housing as one of the key pillars of societal stability. In recent years, the programme has witnessed a series of strategic developments that have enhanced the effectiveness of the housing system, accelerated the process of obtaining housing support, and increased customer satisfaction. Additionally, there has been an expansion in partnerships with the banking sector and financial institutions, in line with the country's focus on financial sustainability and innovation in service delivery. Between 2021 and 2024, the programme achieved remarkable results in terms of performance indicators. The time required to obtain a housing support decision was reduced by more than 50%. The percentage of citizens owning homes increased to 91% - a 17% increase compared to 2017, while private sector funding accounted for 76% of the total, confirming the effectiveness of the adopted financial policies. Customer satisfaction surveys also showed that happiness levels regarding housing services doubled today—an increase of 100% compared to 2021—indicating a significant improvement in the efficiency of the government service system. In this context, the UAE Cabinet has approved a new financing policy for the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme extending until 2041. The policy aims to issue 40,000 housing support decisions, divided into four phases. The first phase includes the issuance of 13,000 decisions at an estimated cost of AED11.5 billion, effectively doubling the number of annual decisions compared to previous years. This comes as part of the country's efforts to enhance resource sustainability and improve the efficiency of public spending. The new policy is based on an integrated model between the federal government and national banks, contributing to reducing the financial burden on the public treasury while providing flexible financing alternatives for citizens. Additionally, the Ministry launched several regulatory initiatives in cooperation with the Central Bank of the UAE to address challenges associated with implementing the new policy. These include the 'Flexible Loan,' which allows citizens to obtain housing finance that aligns with their financial capabilities, with the possibility of benefiting from the finance gap for up to four years. Another initiative is the 'Reuse of Housing Assistance Value,' enabling citizens to re-utilise the assistance in case their living conditions change. Moreover, the policy includes an 'Exemption of Retirement Contributions from Total Salary,' which enhances the process of assessing monthly income and expands opportunities for obtaining housing support. As part of the government's efforts to streamline procedures, the Ministry launched the 'Manzili' bundle, which was recognised in the Zero Bureaucracy Awards as the Best Team across the UAE Government in the 'Impact on People's Lives' category. The package contributed to reducing the number of entities a customer must deal with from 11 to just one, the number of procedures from 14 to three, and the required documents from 10 to just one. This was made possible through integration and coordination with 28 partner entities, resulting in saving over 9 million working hours, reducing fuel consumption by 55,000 liters, and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 586,000 kilograms—based on calculations for an estimated 5,000 users annually. The Ministry also launched the national platform 'Darak' as a unified window for offering advisory services and construction packages to citizens. This was done in collaboration with the Ministry of Possibilities, the Social Solidarity Fund for Ministry of Interior employees, and local housing programmes. In a new achievement that reflects the UAE's global standing in the housing sector, the country won the presidency of the General Assembly of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and secured membership in its Executive Board. This recognition strengthens the UAE's role in supporting international efforts in housing and sustainable urban planning. UN-Habitat is an international UN agency headquartered in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. It works towards a better urban future, with a mission to ensure adequate shelter for all by promoting the sustainable development of human settlements in social and environmental dimensions. UN-Habitat includes a membership of 193 countries from around the world. Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, said, 'Thanks to the directives of the UAE's wise leadership, the country continues to achieve significant milestones in the housing sector. The housing support decisions, during the first half of 2025, reflect the country's unwavering commitment to providing suitable housing for citizens, as it represents a fundamental pillar in the path of comprehensive development.' He added, 'These remarkable achievements are the result of a strategic vision in which government efforts are integrated with the banking sector under the new funding policy, aimed at empowering Emirati families, enhancing quality of life, and ensuring resource sustainability.' He pointed out that the Ministry, in the coming phase, aims to develop innovative housing projects that align with future needs, reinforce principles of sound financial management, and redefine traditional concepts of homeownership—contributing to improved quality of life, family stability, and the social and economic growth of the nation. For his part, Eng. Mohamed Al Mansouri, Director-General of Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, emphasised that these achievements reflect the forward-looking vision of the wise leadership, which places people at the heart of development plans. He noted that the programme is a fundamental pillar in empowering and stabilising Emirati families. He said, 'We continue working to develop a flexible and innovative federal housing system that integrates government and private sector efforts, aligns with citizens' aspirations, and enhances the UAE's global competitiveness in quality of life and urban development indicators.'
Globe and Mail
09-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Income inequality is a vital issue. Why is nobody talking about it?
It is sad the issues currently dominating the headlines are the reshaping of global trade, the White House's battles with elite universities and immigration. There's not a peep from the U.S. government, academia or Wall Street about something that is vital to our social stability now and in the future. That crucial issue is massive income and wealth inequality, which has gone unaddressed by policymakers for years, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. It is not foreign producers and exporters who stole jobs away from America and hollowed out the middle class. It is the entire tax system, especially how it directs government subsidies and support. The government never made adequate efforts to retool and retrain workers most affected by globalization. That amounts to years of neglect at the highest levels of the public sector. We need to constantly remind ourselves that capitalism needs democracy, and democracy needs social stability. Nothing I see policy-wise right now tells me we are heading in a very good direction. This is the problem with the tariff war and the 'big beautiful' budget bill. None of these really help the 'little guy.' From 1950 to 1980, productivity growth averaged just over 2 per cent annually, and real worker compensation per hour matched that pace. Something happened in 1980. I have often said that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of our time, but I'm not so sure any more. While the Gipper had exceptional leadership and communication skills, it was his policies that got the ball on income inequality rolling here, especially on tax reform. Top marginal corporate tax rates were 46 per cent then and are 21 per cent today. Everyone embraced the reforms at the time, notably on Wall Street. But productivity has increased at a 2-per-cent average annual rate since 1980, while real work-based incomes have averaged half that pace at just over 1 per cent per annum. Compound that divergence over a 45-year period and it amounts to a whole lot of money. You see how dangerous this is, right? In a balanced economy, workers should be reaping the fruits of their labour. Their real compensation growth should match the labour component of productivity growth that they bring to their employers. So, who benefited from the continued expansion in labour productivity if it wasn't the workers? It was the owners of these businesses. From 1950 to 1980, unit profits in the non-financial corporate sector rose at an annual average rate of 2 per cent or more. Businesses and workers shared equally in the productivity gains. But since 1980, unit profit growth has doubled to more than a 4-per-cent average annual rate. Washington found a very clever way to keep lower-income individuals feeling they could afford the American Dream. The government deregulated the financial sector and allowed them to plug the proletariat with debt. The outstanding level of debt in the household sector has surged by more than 10 times since 1980 to $20-trillion. (All figures in this piece are in U.S. dollars.) The number of households has only expanded by 70 per cent over this period. In 1970, personal debt (loans and mortgages) was $7,000 per household. In 1980, it went up to $17,000. A decade later, after a proliferation of financial innovation and ever-increasing access to credit, that number rose to $38,000 by 1990. Then to $70,000 in 2000, $120,000 in 2010 (after a debt-laden mortgage boom), $130,000 in 2020, and now $150,000. In 1970, credit cards were a $5-billion business. Only high-income earners with a credit score could access a card, and they had one American Express card. It was a status symbol. Even in 1980, it was just a $60-billion business. Today? Try $1.3-trillion! This, along with government-insured mortgages, encouraged people – and particularly those in the low and middle classes – to replace the incomes they should have received from their productivity with easy access to credit. How can this possibly end well? Now that the Fed has raised rates more than four percentage points from the cycle lows and is leaving monetary policy deliberately tight, we are seeing the strains beginning to surface. Delinquency rates have surged on credit cards and auto loans; now that has spread to student debt, and even mortgage late-payment rates are edging higher. Consumer confidence for the lowest-income cohort has plummeted to all-time lows. Because young adults are saddled with so much debt, with few job or income prospects, their confidence levels have also plumbed the depths as they confront an additional problem, which is that the dream of owning a home is now just that – a dream. A median starter home price today averages out to $342,000 – with median incomes for this group at $68,000 and qualifying income for a mortgage loan at $100,000, how on earth can they ever move out of their parents' basements? There are 45 million Americans between 25 and 34 still living at home! It's time to stop this obsession with blaming foreign trading partners for our problems at home and start focusing on the real problems that are homegrown. The tax system has not only failed to cover the insane level of government spending, which has somehow been allowed to surge more than 50 per cent above the level immediately preceding the pandemic in 2019, but has failed to prevent income inequalities from rising further to unprecedented levels. Means-testing Social Security or widening the bands of the income tax rate schedules have somehow become taboo; not to mention tightening the bands between net effective corporate rates and personal tax rates. And that, my friends, will carry with it the laws of unintended consequences. Not now, perhaps, but in the future. David Rosenberg is founder of Rosenberg Research.
South China Morning Post
10-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
China's security system urged to handle duties with ‘passion' as pressures mount
China's top security officials said the country's security and law enforcement apparatus must 'shoulder their responsibility with passion' as external tensions put more pressure on China's internal stability. Advertisement 'At present, the international and domestic situations have undergone new changes, and the task of maintaining national security and social stability is arduous and onerous,' wrote Yin Bai, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Communist Party's top security organ, in an article on Friday. It was published on the front page of the Study Times, the journal of the Central Party School , where China's political stars are trained. The commission oversees the entire law enforcement and security system in China, which includes millions working for the police, prosecutors, courts and secretive state security agencies. 'The people's higher expectations for fairness, justice, peace and security have put forward new requirements for the building of the political and legal team,' he wrote. He acknowledged that the security and law enforcement systems still had 'many inadequacies' in work discipline, coordination, ability and quality to meet the demands of the tasks they faced. He ordered the Chinese law enforcement system to swear 'absolute loyalty' to the party led by President Xi Jinping, 'resolutely follow the party's decisions, and resolutely avoid what the party prohibits'. Advertisement He also reiterated the need to purge corruption from the law enforcement system, and vowed to stop the practice of 'profit-driven law enforcement' – a reference to cases in which police have crossed provincial borders to seize cash and assets from companies as many local governments faced a shortage of funds.
