Dubai, United Arab Emirates

🇦🇪 Dubai is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai. Established in the 18th century as a small fishing village, the city grew rapidly in the early 21st century into a cosmopolitan metropolis with a focus on tourism and hospitality. Dubai is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, ranked second in the world for the number of five-star hotels, and home to the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. Located in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula on the coast of the Persian Gulf, Dubai aims to be the business hub of Western Asia. It is also a major global transport hub for passengers and cargo. Oil revenue helped accelerate the development of the city, which was already a major mercantile hub. A centre for regional and international trade since the early 20th century, Dubai's economy relies on revenues from trade, tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services. Oil production contributed to less than 1 percent of the emirate's GDP in 2018.

Economy One of the world's fastest growing economies, Dubai's gross domestic product is projected at US$107.1 billion, with a growth rate of 6.1% in 2014. Although a number of core elements of Dubai's trading infrastructure were built on the back of the oil industry, revenues from oil and natural gas account for less than 5% of the emirate's revenues. It is estimated that Dubai produces 50,000 to 70,000 barrels (7,900 to 11,100 m3) of oil a day and substantial quantities of gas from offshore fields. The emirate's share in the UAE's total gas revenues is about 2%. Dubai's oil reserves have diminished significantly and are expected to be exhausted in 20 years. Real estate and construction (22.6%), trade (16%), entrepôt (15%) and financial services (11%) are the largest contributors to Dubai's economy.

Dubai's non-oil foreign trade stood at $362 billion in 2014. Of the overall trade volumes, imports had the biggest share with a value of $230 billion while exports and re-exports to the emirate stood at $31 billion and $101 billion respectively.

By 2014, China had emerged as Dubai's largest international trading partner, with a total of $47.7 billion in trade flows, up 29% from 2013. India was second among Dubai's key trading partners with a trade of $29.7 billion, followed by the United States at $22.62 billion. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was Dubai's fourth trading partner globally and first in the GCC and Arab world with a total trade value of $14.2 billion. Trade with Germany in 2014 totalled $12.3 billion, Switzerland and Japan both at $11.72 billion and UK trade totalled $10.9 billion.

Historically, Dubai and its twin across Dubai Creek, Deira (independent of Dubai City at that time), were important ports of call for Western manufacturers. Most of the new city's banking and financial centres were headquartered in the port area. Dubai maintained its importance as a trade route through the 1970s and 1980s. Dubai has a free trade in gold and, until the 1990s, was the hub of a "brisk smuggling trade" of gold ingots to India, where gold import was restricted. Dubai's Jebel Ali port, constructed in the 1970s, has the largest man-made harbour in the world and was ranked seventh globally for the volume of container traffic it supports. Dubai is also a hub for service industries such as information technology and finance, with industry-specific free zones throughout the city. Dubai Internet City, combined with Dubai Media City as part of TECOM (Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority), is one such enclave, whose members include IT firms such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Google, EMC Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft, Dell and IBM, and media organisations such as MBC, CNN, BBC, Reuters, Sky News and AP. Various programmes, resources and value-added services support the growth of startups in Dubai and help them connect to new business opportunities.

The government's decision to diversify from a trade-based, oil-reliant economy to one that is service- and tourism-oriented made property more valuable, resulting in the property appreciation from 2004 to 2006. A longer-term assessment of Dubai's property market, however, showed depreciation; some properties lost as much as 64% of their value from 2001 to November 2008. The large-scale real estate development projects have led to the construction of some of the tallest skyscrapers and largest projects in the world such as the Emirates Towers, the Burj Khalifa, the Palm Islands and the most expensive hotel, the Burj Al Arab. Dubai's property market experienced a major downturn in 2008 and 2009 as a result of the slowing economic climate. By early 2009, the situation had worsened with the Great Recession taking a heavy toll on property values, construction and employment. This has had a major impact on property investors in the region, some of whom were unable to release funds from investments made in property developments. As of February 2009, Dubai's foreign debt was estimated at $80 billion, although this is a tiny fraction of the sovereign debt world-wide.

The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) was established in March 2000 as a secondary market for trading securities and bonds, both local and foreign. As of the fourth quarter 2006, its trading volume stood at about 400 billion shares, worth $95 billion in total. The DFM had a market capitalisation of about $87 billion. The other Dubai-based stock exchange is NASDAQ Dubai, which is the international stock exchange in the Middle East. It enables a range of companies, including UAE and regional small and medium-sized enterprises, to trade on an exchange with an international brand name, with access by both regional and international investors.

DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre) was established in 2002. It's the world's fastest-growing free zone and been nominated as "Global Free Zone of the Year 2016" by The Financial Times Magazine.

Dubai is also known as the City of Gold because a major part of the economy is based on gold trades, with Dubai's total gold trading volumes in H1 2011 reaching 580 tonnes, with an average price of US$1,455 per troy ounce.

A City Mayors survey ranked Dubai 44th among the world's best financial cities in 2007, while another report by City Mayors indicated that Dubai was the world's 27th richest city in 2012, in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). Dubai is also an international financial centre (IFC) and has been ranked 37th within the top 50 global financial cities as surveyed by the MasterCard Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index (2007), and 1st within the Middle East. Since it opened in September 2004, the Dubai IFC has attracted, as a regional hub, leading international firms and set-up the NASDAQ Dubai which lists equity, derivatives, structured products, Islamic bonds (sukuk) and other bonds. The Dubai IFC model is an independent risk-based regulator with a legislative system consistent with English common law.

In 2012, the Global City Competitiveness Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Dubai at No. 40 with a total score of 55.9. According to its 2013 research report on the future competitiveness of cities, in 2025, Dubai will have moved up to 23rd place overall in the Index. Indians, followed by Britons and Pakistanis are the top foreign investors in Dubai realty.

Dubai has launched several major projects to support its economy and develop different sectors. These include Dubai Fashion 2020, and Dubai Design District, expected to become a home to leading local and international designers. The AED 4 billion first phase of the project was completed in 2015.

In September 2019, Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ordered to establish the Higher Committee for Real Estate Planning to study and evaluate future real estate construction projects, in ordered to achieve a balance between supply and demand, which is seen as a move to curb the pace of construction projects following property prices fall.

Since the economy of Dubai relies on real estate, transportation and tourism, it was highly exposed to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2020, the American business and financial services company, Moody's Corporation reported that the coronavirus outbreak is likely to pose acute “negative growth and fiscal implications” in Dubai. It was reported that in order to bolster its finances and overcome the impact of coronavirus on its economy, Dubai was in talks to raise billions of dollars of debt privately, where it was seeking loans of 1 billion dirhams ($272 million) to 2 billion dirhams from each lender. On 6 May, Dubai's businessman from the hospitality sector, Khalaf Al Habtoor stated that the coronavirus pandemic left the economy and his companies “bleeding”. The owner of seven hotels in the country, including the Waldorf Astoria on the man-made island Palm Jumeirah, Habtoor stated that Dubai's economy cannot afford to wait for the vaccine, before resuming the major activities. In June 2020, the Moody's Investors Service cut down its ratings for eight of the biggest banks based in the UAE from stable to negative. In effect, the benchmark stock index of Dubai dropped the most among all the Gulf nations, where the DFM General Index lost as much as 1.3 per cent.

In July 2020, a report released by an NGO, Swissaid, denounced the gold trade between Dubai and Switzerland. The documents revealed that Dubai firms, including Kaloti Jewellery International Group and Trust One Financial Services (T1FS), have been obtaining gold from poor African countries like Sudan. Between 2012 and 2018, 95 per cent of gold from Sudan ended up in the UAE. The gold imported from Sudan by Kaloti was from the mines controlled by militias responsible for war crimes and human rights violations in the country. World's largest refinery in Switzerland, Valcambi, was denounced by Swissaid for importing extensive gold from these Dubai firms. In 2018 and 2019, Valcambi received 83 tonnes of gold from the two companies. In a letter on 11 October 2021, the Switzerland State Secretariat for Economic Affairs asked the country's gold refineries to keep a strict check on the imports from the Emirates to ensure no involvement of illicit African bullion. Switzerland accounted for high volume of imports from the UAE, which were to be 10% of the total Swiss gold imports in 2021. The refineries were required to identify the country of origin of all gold that came from the UAE.