Dubai reviews policies to maintain competitiveness

Dubai: The Government of Dubai will continue to review policies to maintain a high competitiveness level compared to regional and global centres of business, a senior official said here Tuesday.

Following several initiatives including a reduction and a freeze on fees at the emirate's Department of Economic Development (DED), Dubai has witnessed an increase in the number of new company registrations.

"We are working hard through the Supreme Fiscal Committee chaired by Shaikh Ahmad [Bin Saeed Al Maktoum] and other committees to review the existing strategies and set new objectives. Based on this, we will come up with new policies to ensure that all obstacles to growth are removed," Sami Dhaen Al Qamzi, Director-General of the DED, told Gulf News in an interview.

Commitment

"We want to ensure that doing business in Dubai is still as easy as before and cheaper than before. We want to retain all the investors in Dubai and assure them that Dubai is committed to providing the best-quality service and the best business environment."

One of the primary aims of policy reviews, Al Qamzi said, is to attract more foreign direct investment to the emirate.

The indebtedness of Dubai's government and companies is no longer an issue that acts as an obstacle to growth, Al Qamzi said. "Dubai's approach to solving the debt and related issues has seen success because it has isolated the debt issue from impacting the performance of the other sectors," Al Qamzi said. "This is reflected in the numbers that we saw in the first quarter and we are going to continue using the same approach. According to the Dubai Statistics Centre [DSC], first-half growth in the emirate's gross domestic product [GDP] was better than expected at 2.2 per cent."

The DSC said in October it expected GDP to grow by 2.3 per cent this year, compared to a 0.5 per cent growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund.

The growth is propped by a healthy recovery in trade, logistics and tourism, Al Qamzi said.

"We have a lot of numbers that indicate that we are moving along the right track," Al Qamzi said. "The real estate sector was the only one that saw a decline. We believe that it will take some more time [for that sector] to record growth. But we believe that the traditional sectors are going to lead demand in the next phase," he said.

Encouraging feedback

Feedback received from the more than 700 participants at the World Economic Forum's Summit on the Global Agenda, which will end in Dubai today, has been encouraging, Sami Dhaen Al Qamzi, Director-General of the DED, told Gulf News. Al Qamzi is a co-chair of the summit along with UAE Economy Minister Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri.

"Through the positive feedback we have received I believe we have achieved some of the goals [of putting Dubai back on the track of economic growth]," Al Qamzi said. Dubai will accrue several "indirect advantages" from hosting the global summit, he said.

"We are delighted and honoured to organize a forum that will set the agenda for Davos 2011. It was important for us to send a message to the world that Dubai is committed to further development in the near future.