In a sign of continuing investor confidence in Dubai and new opportunities arising across diverse economic sectors, the Department of Economic Development (DED) in the emirate issued 2,650 new licenses for various professional, commercial, industrial and tourism activities in August 2019. According to the Business Registration and Licensing (BRL) sector in DED 65.6% of the new licences were professional, 32.2% commercial, 1.7% related to tourism and 0.5% industry, and together, they created 8,187 jobs in the labour market.

The ‘Business Map’ digital platform of DED, which seeks to reflect the economic realities in Dubai by providing vital data on each license category including their numbers and distribution on a monthly basis, saw 21,249 business registration and licensing transactions being completed during August 2019. The outsourced service centres of DED accounted for 15,349 transactions – 72% of the total – thus demonstrating their vital role in delivering value-added services to the public in Dubai.

The August 2019 transactions also showed that Trade Name Reservation accounted for 3,452 transactions, while the number of Initial Approvals reached 2,954. The total number of Commercial Permits reached 1,023 in August 2019.

The report showed that License Renewal accounted for 8,646 transactions in August 2019, including 4,282 (50%) transactions related to Auto Renewal via text messages.

BRL also issued 160 instant licenses, which is processed in a single step without the need for either the Memorandum of Association or an existing location for the first year, while the number of DED Trader licenses, which allows to conduct business activities on social media, reached 191 in August 2019.

The report also showed that the top nationalities who secured licenses in August 2019 were: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Britain, China, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan and the USA in that order.

The Deira area accounted for for the largest share (1,518) of licences issued in August 2019, followed by Bur Dubai (1,129), and Hatta (3). The top sub-regions, which accounted for 86.7% of all the transactions, were: Al Garhoud (15.2%), Burj Khalifa (14.4%), Oud Al Muteena 3 (14.2%), Al Fahidi (8.6%), Al Muraqqabat (8.6%), Port Saeed (8.2%), Oud Metha (7.1%), Al Qubaisi (5.7%), Al Marar (2.8%), and Naif (1.9%).

Real estate, leasing & business services accounted for 43.9% of the new licenses issued in August 2019 according to the distribution of economic activities, followed by Trade & repair services (26.7%), Community & personal services (8.9%), Building & Construction (7.5%), Transport, storage & communications (4.5%), Hotels group (3.4%), Manufacturing (1.5%), Financial brokerage (0.9%), Health & labour (0.9%), “Contracting group” (0.8%), Education (0.6%), and Agriculture (0.4%).

A qualitative leap in evaluating market performance, the Business Map reflects the reality of business movement in Dubai and provide daily updates that help investors to identify opportunities, geographical distribution of business activity and potential areas for expansion. For more information, please visit www.dubaibusinessmap.ae or download Dubai Business Map App.