The Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai issued 3,818 new licenses for various professional, commercial, industrial and tourism activities in November 2019. This comes in line with the continuing investor confidence in Dubai and new opportunities arising across diverse economic sectors. According to the Business Registration and Licensing (BRL) sector in DED 70.4% of the new licences were professional, 27.7% commercial, 1.5% related to tourism and 0.4% industry, and together, they created 10,821 jobs in the labour market.

According to the distribution of the new licences in the top main areas, the Bur Dubai area accounted for the largest share (2,214), followed by Deira (1,599), and Hatta (5) licences.

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 28,919 business registration and licensing transactions being completed during November 2019. The outsourced service centres of DED accounted for 21,940 transactions – 76% of the total – thus demonstrating their vital role in delivering value-added services to the public in Dubai.

The November 2019 transactions also showed that Trade Name Reservation accounted for 4,996 transactions, while the number of Initial Approvals reached 4,224. The total number of Commercial Permits reached 1,371 permits. The report also showed that License Renewal accounted for 10,865 transactions, including 5,492 (50.5%) transactions related to Auto Renewal via text messages.

The BRL sector also issued 270 instant licenses, which is processed in a single step within five minutes 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 websites and social media channels, reached293  in November 2019.

The top nationalities who secured licenses in November 2019 were: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Britain, Jordan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Afghanistan in that order.

According to the distribution of the new licences in the top sub-regions, which accounted for 64.6% of all the transactions, were: Trade Centre 1, Al Garhoud, Burj Khalifa, Al Mankhool, Al Fahidi, Al Barsha 1, Al Marar, Al Qusais 2, Hor Al Anz, and Port Saeed.

Real estate, leasing & business services accounted for 45.5% of the new licenses issued in November 2019 according to the distribution of economic activities, followed by Trade & repair services (24%), Building & Construction (8%), Community & personal services (7.4%), Transport, storage & communications (6%), Hotels group (3.8%), Manufacturing (2.7%), Financial brokerage (0.9%), Health & labour (0.6%), Contracting group (0.6%), Education (0.3%), and Agriculture (0.2%).

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.