The Abu Dhabi World Financial Market (ADWFM), a financial free zone located on Al Maryah island near Abu Dhabi’s city centre, will have 100% foreign ownership, tax and capital repatriation, according to sources close to Gulf News.
Although the ADWFM is scheduled to open by 2015 the fast economic growth in the UAE means it is “expected to open it at the end of 2013” and in common with the DIFC a British law system will apply, the sources added.
But Robert Parker, chief executive of Holborn Assets in Dubai, cautioned that there is too little knowledge at the moment on this development for there be to anything more than speculation.
In the absence of official statements from the Abu Dhabi government, Parker did however highlight the eight years of progress made by Dubai’s DIFC.
He said: “In that time the DIFC has established a successful free zone where property has been built and let out and sold and is now a thriving community of lawyers, accountants, coffee shops, restaurants and tailors amongst other businesses that tend to arrive where there is a vibrant community.”
Parker added: “Now what this all means in terms of the success of Morgan Stanley and other global institutions building a market in the Middle East to match Hong Kong and London is a completely different story.
If DIFC is the yardstick I don’t see a future for this other than a great way of finding another way to build/ sell and rent out property.”
You may be interested in revisiting the news that the Financial Services Association (UAE),the cross sector trade body for finance firms, initially registered in the Dubai International Finance Centre and also in Abu Dhabi last year.
To read about how Gulf intermediaries regard the global economic situation, including eurozone crisis, click here.
