The Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED) issued 1,848 new business licenses during April 2018 as the emirate remained a destination of choice for investment in diverse business sectors. The ‘Business Map’ digital platform of DED saw 26,498 business registration and licensing transactions being completed during the month as economic diversification and competitiveness continued to strengthen the emirate’s ability to sustain business growth.

The ‘Business Map’ tracks business registration and licensing in DED and seeks to reflect the economic realities in Dubai by providing vital data on each license category, including their numbers and distribution as well as investor trends on a monthly basis.  Overall business registration and licensing (BRL) activity and its distribution across sectors and areas in the emirate reaffirms improved investor confidence in the expansionary spending policies and growth potential in Dubai.

The Business Map showed that license renewals accounted for about 12,670 transactions in April while 3,305 transactions were related to Trade Name Reservation, 3,778 to Auto Renewals, 87 to Instant Licenses and 117 transactions to e-Trader licenses.

The distribution of BRL activity across sectors, categories and areas also underline the broad appeal that Dubai retains as a business and investment hub as well as the advanced sustainability levels achieved by the emirate. Among the new licenses issued, 58.6% were Commercial, 38.9% Professional, 1.5% related to Tourism and 1%, Industrial.

Bur Dubai accounted for the lion’s share (854) among the new licenses, Deira had 834, New Dubai 150, and Hatta 10. The top 10 sub-regions that accounted for 56% of all the transactions were: Burj Khalifa (12.6%), New Dubai (9.3%), Al Marar (6.8%), Naif (5.3%), Garhoud (4.8%), Port Saeed (4.6%), Dubai World Trade Centre 1 (4.4%,) Hor Al Anz (3.5%), Karama (2.4%), and Al Wasl (2.3%).

The outsourced service centres of DED continued to witness hectic activity in April too accounting for 20,146 transactions, or 74% of the total, demonstrating their vital role in delivering value-added services to the public in Dubai.

Trade & repair services accounted for 35.7% of the April 2018 transactions, followed by Real estate, leasing & business services (22.5%), Community & personal services (12.5%), Construction (11.6%), Hotels group (8.1%), Transport, storage & communications (3.4%), Manufacturing (3.2%), Financial brokerage (2.3%), Education (1.4%), Health & labour (0.9%) and Agriculture (0.7%).

The top 10 nationalities among BRL customers in April were India, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Britain, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh in that order.