UAE: Dubai Economy

The eagerly anticipated public-private partnership (PPP) law came into force in November 2015, ushering in what could be a new era in infrastructure development. The idea is to empower investors, both foreign and domestic, to take a bigger long-term role in financing and operating large projects. The law is expected to have an immediate impact...

The economic narrative of Dubai has shifted in recent years, from passage through its first financial crisis as a major player in the global economy to a more forward-looking version of itself.

While in 2015 the world’s emerging countries and fastest-growing economies suffered due to low commodity prices and currency depreciations, Dubai still enjoyed steady GDP growth at around 4% and an increased drive towards consolidating its position as a knowledge-based economy. With a well-diversified model and a set of transformation-oriented...

Level 112 of the Burj Khalifa offered a birds-eye view of Dubai to participants at the Dubai Plan 2021 Creative Labs event in March 2016. The symposium was a follow-up on the original cycle held in 2014, which formulated an ambitious strategy by which the emirate intends to build on the foundations it has already established. The 2016...

With crude oil prices low and seen as unlikely to return to levels above $100 in the next few years, the matter of taxes has been pushed to the forefront of debate in Dubai. The establishment of some form of general taxation has been one of the longest-running political issues in the emirate, the UAE and the wider region. With public revenues...

Since Saudi Arabia began reducing its domestic wheat production in 2008, the issue of food security has been high on the agenda for governments in the GCC region. The kingdom, which was once self-sufficient in the grain and even exported to the wider region, recognised a fact that is true across the whole of the Arabian Peninsula: it is...