Dubai Economy has launched a ‘Market Dialogue’ initiative to broaden its communication with the business community and consumers through advanced technology platform. The virtual dialogue seeks to identify the most prominent challenges faced by businesses, including those related to COVID-19 and its impact, engage with the various business sectors, and propose innovative solutions that contribute to business continuity.

The initiative comprises a series of webinars, broadcast live on Zoom and the Dubai Economy Instagram page, in cooperation with a media partner for each session. The webinars bring spokespeople and senior executives from Dubai Economy and its agencies in an interactive session on diverse topics related to the current stage of market reopening and its challenges, while also allowing participants to raise questions and have them answered live.

Mariam Al Afridi, Director of Government Communication in Dubai Economy, affirmed that the initiative is part of ensuring constant and effective communication with various business sectors, such as exporters, suppliers, investors, manufacturers, and small and medium enterprises. “The Dubai Economy communication campaign following COVID-19 included seven languages (Arabic, English, Urdu, Chinese, Hindi, Malayalam, and Farsi) across various channels, including our call centre; smart applications such as Dubai Consumer and EngageDXB, and the@Dubai_DED social media account, as well as print and broadcast media partners to reach out efficiently to the largest section of society and businesses.”

Al Afridi stressed that the dialogue series sought to directly interact with business sectors and consumers, listening to them, and responding to them instantly, thus moving a step further towards the Dubai Economy goal of engaging with businesses and addressing their concerns quickly and effectively across innovative, secure and easily accessible platforms.

Dubai Economy has already concluded three virtual webinars in Arabic and English, all of which focussed mainly on the repercussions of COVID-19. Future webinars will address other topics of interest to the business community as well. The first and second sessions titled ‘For Creating a Safer Shopping Experience’ discussed COVID-19 precautions applicable to malls and other shopping outlets. The first session in Arabic had Mohammed Ali Rashed Lootah, CEO of the Commercial Compliance & Consumer Protection (CCCP) sector in Dubai Economy as the guest speaker and Al Bayan daily as Media Partner while the second one in English hosted Mohammed Shael Al Saadi, CEO of Corporate Strategic Affairs sector, with Khaleej Times as media partner.

Lootah in his session mentioned the market inspections held to verify adherence to precautionary measures in the first phase, stressing that intensive inspection campaigns lead to a remarkably higher level of compliance. CCCP was keen on disseminating information related to preventive measures in different languages to reach the largest possible number of the multinational business community in Dubai. He pointed out that merchants and stores can resume their activities at full capacity so long as they commit to physical distancing. The management of any establishment will also reserve the right to deny access to customers found to be potentially risky or not wearing face masks.

The second session saw Al Saadi highlighting Dubai’s successful efforts in mitigating the effects of COVID-19 thanks to the government’s leading efforts and the society’s compliance. Government guidelines relating to COVID-19 during the past three months were co-drafted in consultation with the private sector and represented the minimum standard that needs to be maintained. He added that strict adherence to existing guidelines will ensure that no further preventive measures are not require.

The third session hosted Engineer Saed Al Awadi, CEO of Dubai Exports, the export promotion agency of Dubai Economy, in partnership with Khaleej Times. Al Awadi who discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the logistics and exports sector, main concerns and challenges facing exporters, and the advantages that Dubai has in the exports sector. He said export restrictions in different markets were a major challenge by added that Dubai Exports and Dubai economy have the required resources and teams to help exporters go past such challenges, ably supported by the emirate’s infrastructure and connectivity.

Dubai Economy has invited the business community and consumers to be part of the ‘Market Dialogue’ webinars that will be announced on social media. Participants can also present their queries and ideas and related to the current state of economic activity on the platform.

Businesses and consumers can reach out to Dubai Economy across various channels, including customer service centres, the Dubai Consumer app available on Apple, Google, and Huawei online stores, consumerrights.ae website, and the call centre(600545555). Dubai Economy has also launched EngageDXB, interactive platform for businesses to communicate with Dubai Economy created in line with the smart city goals of the Dubai Government.