UAE Blockchain Strategy 2021: $3B Savings Annually

United Arab Emirates (UAE) Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched on Wednesday the UAE Blockchain Strategy 2021, which aims to implement the technology at the government level. The strategy is expected to save the federal government $3 billion a year on document operations and 77 million man-hours, as well as cut government print documents by 389 million. Overall, the UAE hopes to manage half of the government transactions with the help of blockchain within three years.

The strategy is based on four pillars: citizen and resident happiness, government efficiency, advanced legislation, and global entrepreneurship.

Official Launch Statement

“Adaptation to advanced technologies and utilizing them in serving society and enhancing the efficiency of government performance is a firmly established approach adopted by the UAE. We want to capitalize on this advanced technology to transform 50 percent of government transactions into the blockchain platform by 2021 in order to cement the UAE’s position to be among the most advanced countries that are well prepared to deal with future changes,”

The UAE government will launch blockchain-oriented training courses, workshops, events, and reports to consolidate its position in regards to the emerging technology.

Shaikh Mohammad is confident that the distributed ledger technology (DLT) can save time, effort, and resources in the UAE, helping users process their transactions in a timely manner.

Dubai, the largest city in the UAE, announced at the end of 2016 its Dubai Blockchain Strategy. That initiative was also launched by Sheikh Mohammed, who is the Ruler of Dubai. Smart Dubai, the entity responsible for the implementation of the strategy and a series of other innovative projects, hopes to save annually $1.5 billion and 25.1 million man-hours by moving 100 million paper documents to blockchain. Smart Dubai revealed that the strategy might be implemented before the deadline.