Dubai
Executive Summary
Dubai Is A Regional Entrepot . . .
The
Emirate of Dubai extends along the Arabian Gulf
coast of the UAE for approximately 72 kilometres
with an area of 3,885 square kilometres, and
a population of more than 1.4 million, according
to 2007 , 50% Arab and 50% mixed. Arabic and
English are the dominant languages.
Jebel
Ali, home of a huge man-made port, has the largest
free-trade zone in Arabia, housing an ever growing
list of international corporations which use
the zone for both manufacturing and as a redistribution
point.
Dubai
international airport is second only to Tokyo
in the number of daily transit passengers it
handles and second only to Seattle as a sea-air
hub.
In
November 2005, in anticipation of a huge increase
in the numbers of tourists, business travellers
and rising trading volumes, the Dubai authorities
announced the launch of a project to build the
world's largest airport in the Jebel Ali Free
Zone.
The
airport, originally known as the Jebel Ali International
Airport (JXB), but since renamed the Al-Maktoum
International Airport in honour of Dubai's ruling
Al-Maktoum dynasty, will be a massive undertaking,
with total infrastructure costs expected to
stretch to an estimated USD33 billion. When
completed, it will have at six parallel runways,
as many concourses, and will be capable of handling
more than 120 million passengers and more than
12 million tonnes of cargo per year.
To
be completed in phases, the first of the six
runways was officially completed in November
2007.
Dubai's
harbor is the most important port in the Middle
East and is ranked among the world's top 10
in terms of container throughput.
The
emirate is strategically located between Africa
and the Middle East and between the Far East
and Europe making it a gateway to over 1.5 billion
consumers located in countries surrounding the
Red Sea and the Gulf.
Dubai's
state-of-the-art air cargo village helps ensure
the worlds fastest sea-air transport in as little
as 4 hours. Transportation is facilitated by
low-cost warehousing and storage facilities
including purpose built cold stores. Dubai is
served by more than 170 shipping lines and the
airport by around 120 airlines.
.
. . And Is Successfully Diversifying Away From
Oil
Petroleum
has traditionally dominated the economy of the
UAE. At one time an underdeveloped area, by
1985 the region had the highest per capita income
in the world. This immense wealth has been invested
in capital improvements and social services
in all seven of the emirates. Petroleum production
is centred in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Industrial
development is essentially petroleum related
but is limited by a lack of trained personnel
and raw materials.
Helped
along by the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone, which
is calls itself home to 5,500 companies from
over 120 countries, the emirate's non-oil imports
expanded by 200% between 1986 and 1994. In 2004,
total non-oil imports stood at Dh 149,046 million.There
are no foreign exchange controls, quotas or
trade barriers. Import duties are extremely
low, and many products are exempt. The UAE dirham
is freely convertible and is linked to the US
dollar.
During
2002, Dubai began to develop plans for the Dubai
International Financial Centre (DIFC), intended
to be a major financial entrepot; a proposed
regulatory structure for the DIFC was published
in June, 2003. In July of that year, the Federal
Cabinet of the (UAE) approved a Federal Decree
allowing the DIFC a large degree of sovereignty.
The DIFC was launched in 2003 and began operations
in late 2004, and it is hoped that the Centre
will double - to 20% - the financial sector's
contribution to the GDP of the United Arab Emirates
by 2010.
There
are no taxes to speak of
Apart
from the oil industry and domestic banking,
there are no income or capital taxes in Dubai,
and no withholding tax. Dubai has a number of
double tax treaties with high-tax countries
and is often used in international tax planning
by major corporations. Dubai belongs to the
unified customs area of the Gulf Co-operation
Council which came into effect on 1st January
2003 and covers Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (including
Dubai).
The
Government Is Keen To Promote E-Commerce
In
2000, the Government began to construct Dubai
Investment Park, also known as Dubai Internet
City (DIC), which has a highly developed technical
infrastructure. The first phase of the project
was completed in 2002. By late-2007 almost 1000
companies had established themselves in the
DIC, including almost all the big names in IT.
The
DIC occupies 3,200 hectares in the South of
Dubai, near the Jebel Ali Free Zone, offering
state of the art facilities and sites for manufacturing,
offices, housing, and academic, research, distributions
and logistics institutions.
Within
a short span of time, a dynamic international
community of ICT companies established itself
in Dubai Internet City. The global ICT giants
are all represented: Microsoft, Oracle, HP,
IBM, Compaq, Dell, Siemens, Canon, Logica, Sony
Ericsson and Cisco, to name just a few. These
companies represent a community of over 5,500
knowledge workers.
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