Dubai: The bad weather conditions have in some ways disrupted business operations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with a number of companies opting to close their offices early as a precautionary measure. Heavy rains also led to the suspension of stock trading at the capital.

Employees working at some companies in Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai Outsource Zone and other parts of the emirate told Gulf News that they were sent home early after heavy rains broke out.

The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange cancelled Wednesday's trading session following reports of power outage and disruption of communication lines for some brokerage firms operating in the market.

"Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange has decided to suspend and cancel the trading session on Wednesday, 9  March 2016, to ensure fairness of financial transactions and in furtherance of the principle of transparency between all our partners," the bourse said in a statement posted on its website.

“We decided to send our staff early today because we didn’t want to endanger them. We realised that the roads are going to be flooded and crowded,” Premjit Bangara, general manager at Sharaf Travel, told Gulf News.

The company has six offices around the emirate, but only the branch in Jebel Ali was closed by 2pm. Employees in other branches, however, were given the discretion to leave early, if deemed necessary.

“A lot of our staff in Jebel Ali are living in Al Nahda or Sharjah, so we thought it was necessary to let them leave much earlier.”

Bangara, however, clarified that their operations were not severely affected, since they had set up a hotline, so that their clients could still reach them throughout the day.

Vipen Sethi, CEO of Landmark Group, a huge retail and hospitality conglomerate that has more than 55,000 employees, confirmed that they have also implemented the same measure for the safety of their staff.

"Owing to the heavy rains, we advised our staff to leave by 1:30pm today so that they have a safe drive home. The safety of our employees is our top priority and we wanted to make sure that they avoid being stranded in traffic caused by the rain," Sethi told Gulf News.

The company has 25 home grown and more than 40 franchise brands in its portfolio.

At Matrix Public Relations, employees were asked to leave at around 2pm, but general manager Hilmarie Hutchison maintained that the decision didn’t turn out to be a damper on productivity.

“Since our network is cloud based, we all have the ability to work remotely.  So leaving early allowed our employees to get home safely where they can still continue work if need be.  So the bad weather has not impacted productivity,” Hutchison told Gulf News.