Kuwait calls for investment in smart tech, digital commerce

• Government calls for increasing investment in scientific research and development, supporting research institutions to drive innovation, and raising community awareness about its significance.

• It calls for creating partnerships among investors, inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs across all sectors to enhance the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem

A government report issued by the National Observatory for Sustainable Development and Future Foresight of the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development has called for encouraging investors to support smart applications that enhance daily life, drive technological progress, and capitalize on opportunities in digital commerce and e-commerce. This includes adapting trade policies to address challenges related to new technologies such as data flows and electronic payments.

According to the report prepared based on Kuwait’s position on the Global Innovation Index 2023, the recommendations for promoting innovation in the country included nine axes, with the following details:

1. Establishing a virtual business incubator for emerging companies in the innovation field, providing free services such as financial, administrative, legal, and marketing consultations.
2. Increasing investment in scientific research and development, supporting research institutions to drive innovation, and raising community awareness about its significance.
3. Promoting digital literacy among individuals and companies to enhance digital skills, align with industrial revolution advancements, and engage in digital economies and justice, particularly focusing on cognitive and information communication technology skills.
4. Implementing innovation strategies in education across all levels, promoting education and training in artificial intelligence, and capitalizing on opportunities in digital commerce and e-commerce by adjusting trade policies to address challenges such as data flows and electronic payments.
5. Creating partnerships among investors, inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs across all sectors to enhance the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Encouraging investors to back smart applications that enhance daily life and drive technological advancement.
6. Identifying the country’s future programs and needs to direct innovation and research towards meeting those needs.
7. Cultivating a culture of creativity and innovation as the foundation and driving force for constructing a society that values innovation. This includes developing a diversified, competitive, and sustainable knowledge-based economy.
8. Encouraging the development of AI applications, providing support for them, and embracing and implementing relevant ideas and projects.
9. Initiating initiatives, strategies, and policies aimed at advancing innovation and creativity across all fields in the country.

Kuwait achieved its highest rankings in the Global Innovation Index in infrastructure, human capital, research, market development, and creative outcomes.

However, its performance fell below the regional average in knowledge and technology outcomes, business development, and market and institutional development.

Kuwait dropped two places globally in the Global Innovation Index for the year 2023, although it retained its fourth rank among Arab and Gulf countries. This was due to Kuwait’s stronger performance in innovation outputs compared to innovation inputs.

Kuwait’s strengths on the index are as follows:

1. Electricity production (gigawatt-hours per million people).
2. Ratio of students to teachers at the secondary level.
3. Access to information and communications technology.
4. Exports of information and communications technology services and their percentage of total trade.
5. Market value and its percentage of GDP.
6. Domestic credit to the private sector and its percentage of gross domestic product.
7. Spending on software and its percentage of GDP.
8. Global brand value among the top 5,000.
9. Cluster development status and extent of cluster spread.
10. Use of information and communications technology.