Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed honours past leaders of DED for their pioneering stewardship

DED celebrates 20 years of steering economic diversification and development in Dubai

His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince, honoured their Excellencies Mohammed Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, and Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, with a commemorative trophy during his visit to the Department of Economic Development (DED), Government of Dubai, recently. The two senior officials were honoured for their pioneering leadership of DED, particularly during the early years of the Department.

The Department, founded in 1992, also marked two decades of successful contribution to economic diversification and competitiveness in Dubai with a special ceremony held at the Business Village, Deira, recently. His Excellency Mr Sami Al Qamzi, Director General of DED, led the celebrations, attended by CEOs and other senior officials and employees of the Department and its affiliated agencies.

“Over the last 20 years DED has complemented economic development in Dubai through diverse activities, chiefly, facilitating business creation, protecting the rights of businesses and consumers, fostering retail trade, promoting and assisting SMEs, attracting foreign direct investment, helping exporters to leverage the liberal trade policies in Dubai, and contributing to the strategic planning of an increasingly diversified economy,” Al Qamzi said.

Business registration and licensing has remained at the core of DED’s services portfolio and the Department has continually streamlined procedures to create the ideal conditions to issue businesses and renew existing licenses. The one-stop-shop solution offered by the Business Registration and Licensing Division has resulted in substantial savings in terms of cost and transaction times for businesses and led to the creation of a large number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Dubai.

DED has also responded appropriately to the huge increase in business applications through capacity additions and timely hiring, especially during the first decade of the new millennium, which saw a seven-fold increase in the number of licenses issued.

Dubai being home to a thriving retail sector, DED has sought to maintain healthy relations within the sector. The Department ensures that businesses comply with consumer protection laws and regulations and that all consumers – residents as well as visitors – know how to safeguard and secure their rights. Similarly, DED’s focus on protecting intellectual property rights has served as a deterrent and ensured a higher degree of compliance despite rising number of violations resulting from the expanding business activity in the emirate.

Furthermore, DED has been instrumental in promoting Dubai as an international shopping city, through organising the annual Dubai Shopping Festival, thus helping to strengthen the domestic trade and leisure activities in particular, and Dubai’s economy in general.

Since 2008, the scope of DED’s role in the economy has widened, with the new explicit mandate of fostering the economic development of the Emirate. All government responsibilities and agencies dealing with promoting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports have since been brought under the DED umbrella.

Realising the potential benefits that SMEs hold for growth and job creation, particularly for nationals, Dubai SME, the SME development agency of DED, has steadily created various instruments and frameworks that facilitate the creation of dynamic and sustainable SMEs.

Similarly, Dubai FDI, DED’s foreign investment promotion office, has sought relentlessly to identify new FDI channels that would generate growth and guides foreign businesses through the initial procedures, eventually helping them adapt to the local environment. Such initiatives have made a positive impact on FDI inflows to Dubai.

Dubai Exports, DED’s export promotion agency, continues to be proactive in helping exporters explore new markets and develop existing ones, with a view to achieve better diversification and growth. Dubai Exports works towards identifying new markets and new niches of products, sharing available information with the exporter community and helping them to seize opportunities.

In line with its broadened mandate, DED has been providing significant inputs to economic policy making in Dubai through various channels, including studies and policy analysis. DED drafted the first Development Plan for Dubai for the period 1996-2000 and is in the process of finalising the new 2012-2015 Plan.

DED has also been an important source of statistical information on business trends and prospects as well as the overall confidence levels among businesses and consumers. It has engaged stakeholders in consultations on important economic policy issues such as enhancing the welfare of residents, removing obstacles faced by SMEs and reducing the cost of doing business in Dubai.

“DED aspires to fulfill its mandate, by contributing significantly to the economic development efforts in Dubai. It has supported economic growth in Dubai over the last 20 years and helped ease the negative impact of the global financial crisis. DED is keener than ever before to protect and expand Dubai’s economic achievements and it is well equipped to do so, thanks to its high quality human resources and departments,” Al Qamzi said.