March Sees a Surge in Business Licensing in Dubai

The Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai witnessed business registration and licensing activity maintaining an upward momentum during the month of March 2018, reaffirming the emirate’s position as a preferred place for business startup and expansion. According to the ‘Business Map’ digital platform of DED, more than 26,410 BRL (business registration and licensing) transactions were completed in March, compared to 23,407 in February 2018, while the number of new licenses issued also jumped from 1,646 to 1,844 between the two months.

The increase in BRL activity, and its distribution across business sectors and areas, underlines improved investor confidence in the expansionary spending policies and economic performance in Dubai as well as the emirate’s potential to enable and sustain business growth.

Renewal of licenses accounted for 12,694 BRL transactions in March 2018 while 3,281 transactions were related to Trade Name Reservation. Initial Approval transactions amounted to 2,231 and there were also 2,018 Auto Renewals, 108 Instant Licenses and 139 e-Trader licenses in the overall activity list.

Commercial licenses topped the list of BRL activities in March 2018 at 62.2%, followed by the Professional (34.9%), Industrial (1.6%) and Tourism (1.3%) licenses. The outsourced service centres of BRL performed remarkably handling 21,582 (81.7%) of the total transactions and reaffirming their role and relevance in providing competitive services to DED customers.

Among the major regions within the emirate, Bur Dubai accounted for the lion’s share of new licenses (848), followed by Deira (847), New Dubai (141) and Hatta (8). The share of the top 10 sub-regions that accounted for 51.7% of all transactions were as follows: Burj Khalifa (11.2%), New Dubai (8.3%), Al Marar (6.4%), Naif (5.1%), Port Saeed (4.2%), Hor Al Anz (4.1%), Dubai World Trade Centre 1 (3.8%), Al Garhoud (3.4%), Al Karama (2.6%) and Al Khubaisi (2%).

Almost all major business sectors and activities were covered by the BRL transactions over March 2018. Trade & repair services accounted for 38.8% of the transactions while Real estate, leasing & business services (23.1%), Construction (13.5%), Community & personal services (11.1%), Hotels group (7.1%), Transport, storage & communications (3.8%), Manufacturing (3.3%), Financial brokerage (2.3%), and Agriculture, Education, Health & Labour (0.6% each) had their share too.

Nationality-wise, Indians were the top segment among BRL customers in March 2018, followed by citizens of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Britain, China, Syria, Jordan, Bangladesh and Sudan.

The ‘Business Map’ tracks BRL activity and seeks to reflect the economic realities in Dubai by providing vital data on each category of licenses including their numbers and sector-wise distribution as well as investor trends on a monthly basis.