The financial sector accounted for 72% of the total value added by the DIFC to the UAE’s economy, with 26.5% contributed by business services, and 1.5% by public administration, the 2010 installment of the centre’s Economic Activity Survey also revealed.
Nasser Saidi, chief economist and head of external relations for the DIFC Authority, said it was “no surprise” that the DIFC’s GDP reached $2.92bn in 2010, up 5.2% from 2009, particularly with the growing number of companies coming into the centre from emerging economies – such tenants, he noted, now make up around 45% of the total.
“The year 2010, coming out of the Great Recession of 2009, was a better-performing year globally and regionally, which was reflected in the performance of the DIFC sub-economy,” Saidi said.
The DIFC is a financial free zone opened in 2004, as part of an effort to encourage economic growth and development throughout the region.A key element in its creation was a promise of regulatory independence by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the de facto head of Dubai.
One feature of this independence is a common-law-based law court complex within the centre, which has jurisdiction over civil and commercial disputes inside or relating to the DIFC, and which conduct business in English. There is also an independent financial and ancillary services regulatory body, the Dubai Financial Services Authority, which, again, oversees just DIFC businesses.
97.8% non-UAE nationals
This year’s report, the DIFC’s fourth such annual analysis of its contribution to the UAE and Dubai economies, included results of a detailed labour force survey that found, among other things, that UAE nationals working in the DIFC accounted for only 2.2% of the total workforce of 11,331 full time employees. Of this number, men represented 65.5% (7,427), and 86% were university graduates and post-graduates.
A copy of the report is available on the DIFC’s website here.
