Dubai: The Auto-Renewal service launched by the Business Registration and Licensing (BRL) sector in Dubai’s Department of Economic Development (DED) has seen a 34 per cent increase in the number of total renewed licences (115,700) during the first ten months of 2018.

The latest BRL report showed that the percentage of auto-renewal transactions accounted for 46.9 per cent during the last quarter of 2018, compared to 14.9 per cent during the first quarter of the same year.

Among the licences issued, 74 per cent were commercial, 22 per cent professional, and 2 per cent related to tourism and industrial, each.

“Business licences can be renewed in two simple steps, and in less than two minutes. Business owners can send a text message with their trade licence number to be renewed to ‘6969’, and they will receive a ‘payment voucher’. They can then complete the payment through any of the payment channels provided in the text message. They can also log on to the Dubai DED website or download the ‘DED Business’ App, which they can also access as a one-time visitor only,” said Abdul Aziz Bin Hathboor, director of the Customer Relation Division in the BRL sector.