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Fozan Fareed
,
Sidra Rehman
,
Ran Bi
,
Jeong Dae Lee
,
Yuan Gao Rollinson
, and
Tongfang Yuan
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have pursued ambitious digitalization strategies as part of their broader economic transformation agenda. This paper provides a thorough review of the GCC's significant acceleration in digital transformation, particularly since the onset of the pandemic, highlighting progress in digital infrastructure, GovTech (government technology) maturity, and fintech activities. By constructing a novel composite index—the Enhanced Digital Access Index (EDAI)—and benchmarking the GCC's achievements against those of advanced and other emerging market economies, the paper finds that the GCC, on average, has closed its gap with AEs on the overall EDAI, with strengths particularly in digital infrastructure and affordability. Based on a global sample, the paper’s empirical analysis highlights a positive correlation between digitalization advancement and enhanced financial inclusion, strengthened banking sector resilience during crises, improved government effectiveness, and faster corporate sector recoveries following economic downturns. To complement the sectoral analysis of the impact of digitalization, the paper also examines the relationship of economic growth and resilience with economy-wide digitalization and find a positive association. Our findings point to additional economic gains from further advancing digitalization in the GCC, which would require comprehensive strategies to further leverage digitalization to enable a more effective and transparent public sector, balance opportunities and risks associated with fintech, enhance digital skills and digital adoption, with adequate social safety nets and appropriate training to strengthen social protection and labor market inclusion, and create an enabling environment to further digital penetration.
José Garrido
,
Ms. Yan Liu
,
Joseph Sommer
, and
Juan Sebastián Viancha
This note explores the interactions between new technologies with key areas of commercial law and potential legal changes to respond to new developments in technology and businesses. Inspired by the Bali Fintech Agenda, this note argues that country authorities need to closely examine the adequacy of their legal frameworks to accommodate the use of new technologies and implement necessary legal reform so as to reap the benefits of fintech while mitigating risks. Given the cross-border nature of new technologies, international cooperation among all relevant stakeholders is critical. The note is structured as follows: Section II describes the relations between technology, business, and law, Section III discusses the nature and functions of commercial law; Section IV provides a brief overview of developments in fintech; Section V examines the interaction between technology and commercial law; and Section VI concludes with a preliminary agenda for legal reform to accommodate the use of new technologies.