The year 2024 has been billed by The Economist magazine as the year of electoral decisions. At various times during the year, a combined total of nearly four billion people across the world will be going to the polls to elect their leaders and representatives, with varying degrees of electoral freedom and agency, making it the world’s biggest year ever for civic decision-making. It also serves us well to be made aware that we are collectively in the midst of the longest-running monetary experiment in the history of the world, with the pandemic-era spree of quantitative easing still making its way through to nooks and crannies of the global economy. The unprecedented inflationary effects of this monetary splurge, and the ever more assiduous efforts to suppress word of the impact of this inflation on society, and the inevitable frustration which that produces, is laying the ground for an upsurge in populist politics across the world, where public decisions are made through the electoral franchise. Against what seems to be all odds, the world is faced with the prospect, daunting to some, of yet another Donald Trump presidency in the United States. Even Mr Putin will be submitting himself to the ballot at some point in the middle of the year.

For a part of the world that is economically so closely linked to the rest of the world, it is worthwhile for us to consider the goings-on in some of the major trade partners of our bases in the UAE and the GCC region. China has emerged from the pandemic a weaker and surprisingly shaky-legged economic superpower to be. Domestic demand in China, while still massive in absolute terms, continues to grow at a rate unsuited to whetting the appetites of suppliers from the Middle East. Growth rates in the EU have fallen short sharply, with the economies of many countries officially billed to slip into recession at some point during the year. The war in the Ukraine with Russia, formerly the EU’s main energy supplier, has not helped matters for them, even as it has proved an opportune moment for oil and gas suppliers with spare capacity, such as Qatar. Decision-points abound for the countries in Europe this year, from Sweden (of all places!) deciding to arm up and send a forward contingent to Estonia, with Finland, which borders and has a history of giving Russia the bloody nose, deciding to join NATO. A more consequential decision, which had already been made, was by Angela Merkel, when, during her tenure, Germany decided to do away with nuclear power plants (in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan), and to pledge the majority of energy custom to Russia.

Economic growth rates in the United States have registered surprising resilience, with US businesses and consumers finally putting the pandemic behind them. This, together with one robust jobs report after another, may in fact provide a major boost in strengthening Joe Biden’s chances of being a two-term President later this year. In India, another “democratic partner” and an increasingly present one at that, as well as a major customer of the Gulf countries, economic growth has been strong as well. This, as well as a track record for prudent, results-oriented economic management, may be enough to push Modi past the finish line when the hustings in his country are up in May, in what has been billed tongue-in-cheek as history’s biggest election.

The year is filled with decisions to be made for us in the world of business as well, and they bear resonance to the world of civics and politics in more ways than one might initially think.

At first, people around the world seem to wish to wholeheartedly push for more stability, whatever their situations are. There is simply so much instability and trepidation renting the air, rendered no less unstable by the cornucopia of civilian and military conflicts raging across parts of the world, as well as the increasingly bitter partisanship that has coloured so much of democratic societies like an infestation.

Like people, businesses also like stability and certainty. They like small, incremental changes to the status quo, if there has to be any at all. They like clear guidelines and adequate timeframes in which to make adjustments. The source of anguish for so many people in so many parts of the world seems to simply be that the onslaught of change has been too rapid for their comfort and has left them stranded, leading to a society with substantial differences between winners and losers, between the fortunate and the less fortunate.

They could learn a thing or two from the way the UAE has gone about implementing what amounts to a paradigm shift in the conduct of business in the country – the UAE Corporate Tax. The declaration of the tax regime took place in the middle of 2023, and businesses and businesspersons across the UAE have been given as much as 15 months in order to get their business books and records in order so that they are ready for submitting their first Corporate Tax Return submissions within nine months to either one of February 2025 or September 2025, depending on their business’s chosen calendar year-end. The government agency in charge of implementing the Corporate Tax regime – the UAE Federal Tax Authority – has done remarkable work in organising conferences and setting up discussion sessions, where businesspersons from the smallest business to large MNCs can all have their doubts about the incoming corporate tax regime cleared.

The decision that has to be made by businesses during this time is simple: Do they wish to face UAE Corporate Tax in a state of preparedness and readiness, or do they wish to face it in a state of confusion, disorganisation and general disarray? I would be lying if I told you, the reader, that, in my experience, everyone is absolutely set and raring to take the UAE Corporate Tax regime head-on. Many are not even fully at home with the cash implications of the UAE Corporate Tax regime on their businesses either. Decades and decades of tax-free business has led to a certain degree of sunken inertia among businesses towards the incoming UAE Corporate Tax regime, which I am fairly certain will lead to a last-minute rush towards achieving some sort of compliance with the rules and regulations. Or, like many in the civic and political world, they, too, simply wish that the most painful and difficult adjustments merely involve doing what they have to do and passing them over. This sort of hopeful fatalism is also not out of character.

What is commendable in all this is the emphasis of the UAE leadership on “استقرار”, or “stability”, and “تنسيق”, or “coordination”. They are fairly resigned to the fact that the days of hydrocarbon-induced largesse will soon enter its early evening, and that, if not eliminated completely, will at least cease to be as tasteful an income proposition as before. The UAE leadership at the federal level, and the Dubai leadership at the emirate level, have come up with multiple forward-looking plans, including Vision 2030 for the UAE and D33 for Dubai, which envisages nothing less than a complete transformation of the country. This is the stuff which in the days of yore used to call for debates.

The UAE does things differently. The country understands the need for change, but also understands that change has to be shepherded carefully, so that the cartwheel of change does not fall out of track and just becomes an unholy mess. Hence, the need for “stability” and “coordination”. Hence the long time periods given for companies to prepare themselves to the best extent possible for the UAE Corporate Tax regime. It is this combination of a clear, well-announced set of goals, a clear intent to make it happen, a clear set of small milestones leading up to the desired objective and a system of obtaining feedback and actively adopting the learnings from that into the future course of action that distinguishes the UAE in achieving what so many billions of people around the world will be hoping for as they go to the polling booths during this year.