DUBAI, July 19 (Xinhua) -- A study released on Wednesday said that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the top three countries in the world that are "most prepared for change."
According to the 2017 KPMG Change Readiness Index (CRI) which ranks 136 countries by assessing their ability to adapt to new challenges, the UAE was ranked third, two notches higher than two years ago, just after European countries Switzerland and Sweden.
The top three criteria for the ranking were enterprise capability, government capability as well as people and civil society capability to change.
The UAE and Norway showed the strongest improvements compared to the 2015 results, according to the study.
The study also lauded the UAE government's strategic planning and security, along with the level of healthcare and implementation of digital strategies.
As 29 percent of the UAE economy is based on oil exports, the Gulf state aims to reduce the share of hydrocarbon energy to 19 percent within the next 10 years in order to become one of "the world's most competitive economies," Sultan Al-Mansouri, UAE minister of economy and foreign trade, has said.
At a government summit in February 2015, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces, said the country shall "celebrate when in 50 years it will ship its last barrel of oil abroad."
