Dubai Business
| Dubai these days is booming with an impressive 13.3% hike in GDP in 2004. Dubai may have made its money from oil, but the days when it was reliant on the black gold are well and truly behind it - indeed the oil industry only accounted for 6.1% of GDP in 2004. Dubai has been increasingly using tourism as one way of decreasing its reliance on oil revenue. Tourist numbers have been rising impressively over the last decade, with especially strong growth in the European market. The UK, the largest inbound tourism market, has enjoyed particular growth of late (there were 322,000 UK arrivals in the first half of 2005). Throughout 2005 many hotels were said to be reporting occupancy rates of 90%, some of the highest in the world despite the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Projections estimate that by 2010 there could be as many as 15 million tourist arrivals a year. Dubai these days has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Unemployment is still at an official rate of zero. The city’s main exports are crude oil, natural gas, re-exports, dried fish and dates. Other sectors that are decreasing in economic importance are traditional small-scale industries, such as fishing, boat building, handicrafts and pearling, which now only make up a fraction of economic activity. Today, the main emerging industries are international trade, manufacturing, finance and other service-based industries. Dubai has always proved competitive in attracting inward investment, with the ‘offshore’ Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) one of the most spectacular success stories. The main business district in Dubai is still around the World Trade Centre, on Sheikh Zayed Road. The Emirates Towers, as the tallest buildings in the Middle East, are one of the business hubs of the city. The focus has shifted to some degree to the new Dubai International Convention Centre (DICC), completed in time for the IMF and World Bank Conference in 2003. Other major planned infrastructure developments include a revamped Port Rashid container port, the completion of a massive marina in Jumeirah, a new bridge over Dubai Creek, the new airport at Jebel Ali and the Burj Dubai, which aims to be the tallest building in the world when it opens in 2008. Projects are ongoing to attract more and more overseas investment into Dubai. The DuBiotech programme is a recent example, a move to create a ‘Biotech Free Zone’ on a 300-acre site complete with laboratories and myriad other research and development facilities. Multinational companies and international organisations based in Dubai include Sony, Heinz, AT&T, Shell, IBM and General Motors. Etisalat is the only provider of Internet services within Dubai, exercising heavy control, with all sites accessed and monitored through the company’s proxy server. The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (tel: (04) 228 0000; website: www.dcci.org) is often helpful for foreign businesspeople. |