20/12/2022
Many ask why the production and innovation of technology that supports the establishment of advanced industries in the Arab countries have not gone in leaps and bound. This is despite the huge investments of many Arab countries, estimated at USD 2.4 trillion in industrial and emerging countries, according to the estimates of the Council of Economic Unity of the Arab League. The latest of these investments is the signing by the Saudi Investment Fund of a USD 1 billion deal to produce an electric car in the US state of Arizona. This was preceded by agreements with foreign companies worth tens of billions by Arab private and public entities to assemble and produce high-tech equipment and devices in the fields of energy, communications, security, defense, and health, among others. Arab investments in leading Western industrial companies date back about four decades when in the 1970s Kuwaitis invested several billion in the German car maker, Daimler, to manufacture Mercedes. Investment in automobile, construction, mining, and chemical companies by investors from Qatar, the UAE, Libya, and Egypt followed. However, so far not all these investments have succeeded in transferring high technology and resettling in any Arab country. There is no car manufactured in Arabia, telephone, computer, or any other leading and high-tech product on the global level. The problem is not only corruption and bureaucracy Why does this situation prevail in the Arab world? A number of countries, such as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, and the UAE, have achieved success in producing and developing local technologies in areas such as textiles, food, household appliances, medicines, travel, and tourism. But overall in the Arab world, there has been little development in the field of technology transfer and localization on a national and integrated basis. The absence of a national technology is usually blamed on corruption, which entails bribery, nepotism, abuse of power as well as bureaucracy, and the lack of infrastructure. In the Arab world, there is also the absence of work culture, collective organization, a spirit of discipline, and the denial of creators' intellectual property rights. But some countries have overcome these challenges and built a thriving technological sector, These include Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chile, Brazil, and Vietnam. The competencies themselves n addition to the incompetence of governments, many Arab companies behave like the governments of their countries. There are only a few exceptions to this. Often companies and organizations disagree on marginal issues, which often wastes opportunities for creative and sustainable joint work that contributes to building a national industrial base. To create such a base, there needs to be the transfer and development of foreign technology within the framework of licenses and joint projects. There are other issues that need to be dealt with. Absence, lack of respect for working hours, lack of accuracy, and many defects in work outputs are just a few examples of issues that need to change. These shortcomings are largely behind the weak appetite of foreign industrial companies to manufacture in the Arab world. Some companies even stopped their production, for example, Mercedes, which closed its factory in Egypt in 2015 after 18 years of assembling cars. This was under the pretext that there is no use for such a product in a market of about 110 million people.
