The United Arab Emirates announced this Tuesday (7) an important change in the configuration of its weekly calendar to align the economy with global markets.
As of January 1, 2022, the country will have a week of four and a half business days and a weekend that runs from Friday afternoon to Sunday. Currently, the weekend in the country covers Friday and Saturday, with Sunday being considered a working day.
The change is part of a set of measures that the Emirates, a major oil producer and a commercial and tourist hub in the region, have been taking since last year to make its economy more attractive to foreign investment at a time of growing rivalry with the neighboring Saudi Arabia.
According to the statement from the local authorities, the working week for government entities will start on Monday and end at midday on Friday, before traditional Muslim prayers — 76% of the population of the Emirates declare themselves to be followers of Islam, and Fridays, in addition to being considered sacred, are also a weekly holiday in some Muslim-majority countries.
The country’s government said the move should improve the work-life balance for workers, while “it will ensure smooth financial, commercial and economic transactions with the countries that follow the Saturday-Sunday weekend.”
The main objective, according to the statement, is to facilitate “stronger international business ties and opportunities for thousands of multinational companies in the UAE.”
For Mohammed Ali Yasin, director of strategy at the company Al Dhabi Capital, the financial sector should benefit from the change with the possibility of making simultaneous payment agreements with developed markets. He also predicts a positive impact on the tourism industry.
Economist Monica Malik, from the Commercial Bank of Abu Dhabi, said she hopes that many companies in the private sector in the United Arab Emirates will also adopt the new calendar configuration. For her, the change, together with other recent reforms, is capable of generating “very significant development”.
Some of these reforms were announced by authorities in late November. As of January 2022, a new penal code enters into force in the Emirates, the result of what has been considered the most extensive transformation in the history of the country in its legal system.
According to the state news agency, 40 laws will be changed. The official announcement, however, did not make it clear what was actually new, as some changes had already been reported previously.
There will be new rules, for example, aimed at offering more protection to women, domestic workers and public safety. Prior to this announcement, major changes included the decriminalization of alcohol consumption and premarital sex.
In the second case, the most recent reform adds more clarity to the status of premarital sexual relations and the children born to them. “Any couple who conceive a child out of wedlock will have to marry or recognize the child, alone or together, and provide identity and travel documents in accordance with the laws of the country of which one of the parents is a national,” said the statement, adding that there could be a penalty of two years in prison in case of rape.
The UAE completed 50 years on the 2nd in full expansion of its regional power. The country’s project reflects the consolidation of one of the most paradoxical points in the entire Middle East, as it is the result of an unusual combination of religious tolerance and political intolerance, a futuristic backdrop of Dubai’s impossible skyscrapers and the ubiquity of sand in every piece of soil that is not covered by human intervention.
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