A senior IMF official said that the UAE should relax foreign-ownership restrictions, foster public-private partnerships and concentrate on innovation to attract more investment. Masood Ahmed, the IMF Middle East and Central Asia department director, said that among these the main ones are efforts to try to improve the public-private partnership framework, relaxing restrictions to foreign ownership and continuing the promotion of innovation. The IMF kept the UAE’s growth forecast at 2.3% last week. Its economy grew by 4% last year. The Abu Dhabi economy is forecast to grow 1.5% this year, down from 4.3% last year; and Dubai is projected to grow 3.3% this year, compared with 3.5% last year, the IMF said. A new factor that will influence growth in the UAE is Brexit, Mr Ahmed said.  He said that the upward effect of higher oil prices is more or less offset by the lower effect from Brexit. (The National)