UAE Business: UAE, Saudi Arabia pension systems improve, says study – Gulf Digital News

UAE Business: UAE, Saudi Arabia pension systems improve, says study – Gulf Digital News

The pension systems of the UAE and Saudi Arabia have improved their score, ranking 25th and 27th out of 44 retirement systems in the 14th annual Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index (MCGPI).

Globally, Iceland was top, followed by the Netherlands, while Thailand ranked last. This year’s MCGPI also features Portugal as a new addition.

The MCGPI is a comprehensive study of 44 global pension systems, accounting for 65 percent of the world’s population. It benchmarks retirement income systems around the world, highlighting some shortcomings in each system, and suggests possible areas of reform that would help provide more adequate and sustainable retirement benefits. The UAE and Saudi retirement income systems were benchmarked against global peers across three key areas of focus: adequacy, sustainability, and integrity.

UAE’s overall index value improved from 59.6 in 2021 to 61.8 in 2022, jumping from C to C+. This is primarily due to improvement in its scores for adequacy and sustainability. The UAE’s pension adequacy rankings are supported by the country’s generous retirement benefits, which ensure a continued income to sustain a good quality of life with a suitable minimum pension relative to earnings. Its improvement in sustainability can be attributed to the UAE’s high labour force