Business | Economy
More trade delegates visit Dubai
Dubai Chamber report shows 48% increase in corporate visitors during the first six months.
- Staff Report
- Published: 22:45 July 21, 2009
- Image Credit: Gulf News archive
- From January to April this year, the number of trade delegations visiting Dubai averaged 24 per month, and at least 10 delegations visited the city in June.
Dubai: A mid-year report released by Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) showed a 48 per cent increase in the number of delegates visiting during the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008.
According to the report, the Dubai Chamber received 128 global trade delegations comprising 1,293 businessmen in the first six months of the year compared with 86 delegations that comprised 999 businessmen during the same period in 2008.
This is an increase of 48 per cent in the number of delegates, and 29 per cent in the number of business visitors.
From January to April this year, the number of visiting trade delegations averaged 24 per month, while in June at least 10 delegations visited the Chamber.
The data also revealed that the number of Certificates of Origin issued by the Dubai Chamber until the end of June showed a slight decrease of four per cent from the same period in 2008.
The number of certificates issued to exporters as of June was 44,000 in contrast to the 54,000 export certificates of origin issued in the same period last year.
The volume of exports by the Chamber's members in the first half of this year was about Dh90.3 billion, down 16 per cent compared with the same period in 2008.
June registered the largest share of the exports volume, amounting to Dh17 billion, which was higher than in February which saw the smallest percentage of exports totalling Dh14.4 billion, which points towards the expected improvement in the coming months. Hamad Bu Amim, Director General, pointed out that the decline in trade volume this year compared to the same period last year is the result of the global economic crisis.
He added that the crisis which had its impact on the prices of oil and raw materials, especially in the wake of 2008, a year that witnessed an extraordinary boom unprecedented at all levels of trade and economic development.
Bu Amim stressed that a comparison of the volume of exports by members of the Dubai Chamber in the first half of 2009 with that of the volume of exports in the first half of 2007, shows an increase of 19 per cent.
In the first half of the year, 4,289 new members joined the Dubai Chamber, a 37 per cent decline from the same period last year, but the rate of renewal of memberships increased by 12 per cent from lasy year, bringing the number of members to 106,000. In March this year, 812 members joined the Chamber, and in May there was a still lower figure of some 623 new members.
The Dubai International Arbitration Centre, one of the Chamber's initiatives, received 157 new cases in the first half of 2009 compared with the 40 cases received during the same period in 2008.
In May, the centre received the largest number of cases at 41.
Meanwhile, the Legal Services Department in the Chamber received 523 cases in the first half of this year compared with 252 cases in the same period last year.
The department received 112 cases in May 2009 compared with the 30 cases registered last January.
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