Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of state-owned firm Dubai World, said Feb. 17 that the United Arab Emirates is preparing a plan to help domestic banks resume lending. In an interview with Bloomberg, Sulayem — who also sits on the committee examining the effects of the international credit crisis on Dubai's economic health — explained that the UAE central bank and federal government were working on a plan to lend money to ailing state-owned enterprises and financial institutions. These comments follow Feb. 8 reports quoting Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development, as saying that Abu Dhabi should lead federal efforts to ease the economic slowdown across the seven-emirate federation. Four days before that, the government announced that Abu Dhabi's top banks would receive a total of $4.4 billion from the government to buffer losses from the global credit contagion.