For 40 years Dubai has been focused on becoming a global trade route, developing comprehensive and efficient infrastructures so as to capitalise on its strategic location and become an international economic hub. Fahad Al Gergawi explains how the Department for Economic Development works to implement policies supporting business growth.

The New Economy: Dubai is focusing on becoming new global trade root, what are the objectives there?

Fahad Al Gergaw: First of all Dubai chose to be this type of city a long time ago and has worked of the past 40 years to achieve what it needed to achieve up to now. This is one of the achievements but Dubai is still looking ahead for more and more to come. The objectives were to create a global platform for the entire region, where the city could generally move the entire region towards what it wants to achieve. There is part of it which is a vision, part of it is a reality of where we are and where we need to be. Part of it is leadership that brings it all together with the people.

The New Economy: What is the role of the Dubai department for economic development in attracting investment?

Fahad Al Gergaw: The Dubai economic department is a catalyst for change and economic development, supporting regulation changes, policy implementation and Dubai’s overall economic strategy. Within that Dubai economic department have 4 arms that really work it out. It is the foreign direct investment, the SME development, the export development and events and promotion of the city that grows globally. Within that, I think this is the dynamics of the city that the current department is looking to upgrade and really develop every time.

The New Economy: There is one statistic that really stands out and that’s that 2.5 billion people live within a 5 hour flight of Dubai, how does that figure into your strategy?

Fahad Al Gergaw: The strategic location of Dubai is known globally but there are other players next to us who have almost the same. What you do with your strategic location is the question. This is where Dubai leveraged it’s infrastructure and facilitation of businesses, and leveraged on the facilitation of easiness of doing business and growth to the entire region that Dubai covers. Part of that is being an easy accessible city but also being a very connected city within the entire region of where we are. That is why, without doubt, India is our largest trading partner and we are the largest trading partner with India. We run with 280 flights per week between the 2 countries. This is by far one of the largest globally, but there is connectivity throughout the whole region where businessmen from these region like to come and conduct business in Dubai, for exhibitions, conferences or even just come on vacation.

The New Economy: The big question is, what is the business case for investing in Dubai now?

Fahad Al Gergaw: Dubai has developed itself to be a business friendly city, a genuine one. The free zones have played a strong part in that, but again the infrastructure that facilitates business to come and makes it easier for business have leverage and flourish from Dubai. Having growth to the entire region that we cover is the key answer to that.

The New Economy: Dubai has many friends and business partners around the world, what kind of countries do you think might become potentially even closer business partners as your global trade route develops?

Fahad Al Gergaw: We have seen relations with India and China growing in the 10 ten years, with India even centuries ago. What we are seeing is a strong impact coming in with a strong relation and economic focus from Latin America. It started with Brazil which is obviously know as one of the BRICS countries. We are seeing a stronger relation coming in with Mexico as well. We think it is a very promising country to have a stronger bilateral relation with Dubai, with so many opportunities available for both countries to develop.

The New Economy: You have had some inward investment success stories recently, tangible signs of progress?

Fahad Al Gergaw: The fundamentals of Dubai’s trade and hubbing and the structure of that is the services. Dubai has a tremendous service industry that supports that. We used to have regional headquarters of companies coming in to cover the Menasa region, we are seeing a new trend of companies who would like to cover their global operational headquarters. One of those is the Cleantech Industry called Robinous who moved it’s headquarters from Denmark to Dubai and it is operating globally from Dubai and has multi-billion dollar businesses all over the world.

The New Economy: So finally, as well as one of the worlds iconic skylines, Dubai is also blessed with a lot of resilience and potential?

Fahad Al Gergaw: It is about the fundamental of the city. The city is fundamental, regardless of what we saw of certain sectors come in and up. I think it is the trade and the services. This is what the fundamentals of the city are and they have been there for a long time. This is what is good about the city and this is what will continue to be good about the city. Leveraging and adding more sectors to the city is always the story but it is the first adapter of best practices from around the world, this is what the city is good at. Also creating that harmony for the international business community from all over the world, the 200 nationalities, to come to live and conduct business. This is what created what Dubai is all about and what we are seeing now is the stepping stone of the next economic cycle that we are very optimistic about.

The New Economy: Fahad Al Gergaw, thank you very much

Fahad Al Gergaw: Thank you