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Dubai Issues 31,000 Business Licenses, Reports 77% Growth in H1

A general view of Dubai. (WAM)
A general view of Dubai. (WAM)
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Dubai Issues 31,000 Business Licenses, Reports 77% Growth in H1

A general view of Dubai. (WAM)
A general view of Dubai. (WAM)

A total of 31,000 commercial licenses were issued in Dubai during the first six months of 2021, a growth of 77 percent compared to 17,478 licenses issued in the same period in 2020.

The record growth can be attributed largely to measures taken to ensure business continuity and further simplify government procedures for businesses.

Rapid response measures from the government and decisive adaptive changes to confront the COVID-19 pandemic have enabled Dubai to successfully contain the outbreak and maintain its robust economic growth, stated Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai.

Sheikh Hamdan said the government adopted a set of new strategic approaches and amended policies to accelerate economic growth and reduce the cost of doing business, apart from offering stimulus packages to enhance business and investor confidence.

The strong growth of the business sector reflects Dubai’s ability to transform challenges into achievements, in line with the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and his conviction that successful crisis management creates opportunities, said the Crown Prince.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid’s vision has allowed Dubai to successfully overcome the repercussions of COVID-19, accelerate its recovery and reinforce its status as a global hub and the world’s best place to live and work.

He added: “The records we have achieved inspire us to continue working as one team to further enhance Dubai’s position as an incubator for entrepreneurs and a hub for global companies by identifying new opportunities for investors to accomplish their ambitions and building innovative development pathways to reinforce Dubai’s global leadership in all fields.”

Sami Al Qamzi, Director-General of Dubai Economy, said the exceptional business licensing activity witnessed by Dubai during the first half of 2021 is a testament to the resilience and sustainability of the emirate’s economy.

According to Dubai Economy, “Invest in Dubai,” the integrated digital platform for establishing a business in Dubai contributed to 25 percent of new licenses issued during the last five months.

Together, the 25 percent of licenses account for 10,591 investors from 117 different nationalities.

A total of 37 percent of the new investors that came through the platform belonged to the 26-35 age group, while another 35 percent were aged 36-45.

The half-yearly report of Dubai Economy showed a remarkable recovery in many vital activities and sectors during the first half of 2021.

The Restaurants and Cafes category saw 1,153 new licenses, a growth of 92 percent compared to the same period last year.

The Tourism sector welcomed 342 licenses that included 20 new hotels (a growth of 147 percent), in addition to various other activities, such as inbound and outbound trips.

The sector is expected to see increased activity, especially with the rise in tourist numbers expected due to Dubai’s continued popularity as a major global destination and its profile as the venue for Expo this year.

The Gold sector also witnessed a remarkable growth of 102 percent compared to the first half of 2020.

The real estate sector witnessed the highest growth of 186 percent with 487 licenses being issued, compared to 170 licenses for the same period last year. Activities in this sector included brokerage of sale and purchase and real estate rentals.

Transport, Shipping and Warehousing, a prominent sector linked to internal and external trade, saw 872 new licenses in H1 2021, a 105 percent growth from the corresponding period in 2020.

The medical and pharmaceutical sector also witnessed a steep rise in the number of licenses issued (196), growing 120 percent, compared to the first half of 2020.

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Business

2 American Economists Win Nobel for Work on Managing Economic Shocks

US macroeconomists Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford are seen on a screen as they are announced as the laureates of the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on October 12, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP)
US macroeconomists Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford are seen on a screen as they are announced as the laureates of the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on October 12, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP)
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2 American Economists Win Nobel for Work on Managing Economic Shocks

US macroeconomists Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford are seen on a screen as they are announced as the laureates of the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on October 12, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP)
US macroeconomists Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford are seen on a screen as they are announced as the laureates of the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on October 12, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP)

American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics Monday for their work on models that have helped governments and central banks manage economic shocks, such as energy crises and inflation.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners in Stockholm, noting that their work created the theoretical foundation to better understand how consumers decide whether to save or spend, insights that make it easier for policymakers worldwide to stabilize economies after fluctuations, The Associated Press said.

“The laureates’ research has made it possible to manage major macroeconomic crises far more effectively than before,” the Nobel committee wrote in a paper explaining the economists' work. “It has been hugely beneficial during the pandemic and the energy crises of recent years.”

Hall, 83, is affiliated with Stanford University in California. Woodford, who was born in 1955, is affiliated with Columbia University in New York.

Woodford spoke to the committee by phone from New York: “It’s a tremendous honor. It’s a surprise.”

Hall also said the award was a “wonderful surprise.”

“I’ve spent my career trying to understand how the economy works, following interesting questions wherever they led. When I thought I had a new idea, the next step was to find out whether it was actually new, whether it was right, and whether it mattered," he said in a statement released by Stanford.

Duo overturned earlier economic assumptions

For decades, governments responded to economic shocks by following the Depression-era prescriptions of the British economist John Maynard Keynes: Intervene in the economy by lowering interest rates and taxes and hiking government spending, thereby encouraging consumers and businesses to spend and invest and help restart growth.

“This is the Keynesian recipe and it worked well — until it didn’t,” said Timo Boppart of the Nobel economics committee.

Policymakers had thought economic management involved simple trade-offs — unemployment, for instance, would stay low at a time of high inflation and rise when inflation fell. But the “ stagflation ” of the 1970s — when the world economy experienced simultaneous high inflation and high unemployment — proved the formula was simplistic.

Some economists argued that government attempts to intervene in the economy were doomed to fail. But Hall and Woodford, in separate contributions, set about improving the Keynesian model to take into account how consumers and businesses actually make decisions about whether to invest and spend.

“Economic outcomes are the result of millions of decisions made at the microlevel by households and businesses,’’ the Nobel committee wrote. “Using models based upon this approach, rather than simply studying the economy from a macro perspective, like a bird’s eye view,” Hall and Woodford’s research “generated a paradigm shift in the theory of stabilization policy.”

Hall studied consumer choices

Hall studied the way that consumers' decisions about whether and how much to spend depend on what they expect their future income to be.

“If they are optimistic, they will consume more than if they are pessimistic,’’ the committee wrote. But consumer expectations can change unexpectedly as new information about the economy comes in. Hall found that forecasting future consumer spending is virtually impossible.

The idea that consumption is mostly unpredictable “is not good news for forecasters, or policymakers,” Olivier Blanchard, who was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during the 2008 financial crisis, said by email. “But it is news they must take into account in thinking about the effects of policy.”

Hall also explored the idea that some households are so strapped financially that they can’t borrow or tap savings in response to economic changes. In a 1982 paper with the economist Fredric Mishkin, Hall found that around 80% of households made spending decisions based on their expectations for the future “while the rest lived hand to mouth," the committee wrote.

“The prize is for research that pushes our understanding of macroeconomics from the bottom up, from families and firms making decisions over time, while looking ahead,” Ivan Werning, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an email.

Woodford analyzed how businesses make decisions Woodford’s research established that businesses make decisions about prices based on where they think interest rates will go in the future.

“If the business believes that its competitors’ prices and its own costs will increase, it is best to set a higher price than it would with the opposite expectation,” the Nobel committee wrote. “Businesses’ decisions are thus also governed by their expectations."

Therefore, central banks such as the US Federal Reserve, which set short-term interest rates, should provide “clear and credible communication about how they reason and what they plan to do." Central banks have responded to this insight by working harder to explain what they are doing.

The new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, has said the trend toward such “forward guidance” went too far. He's trying to scale back how much the US central bank talks about its thinking and its intentions.

Woodford's research also offered guidance on how central banks should respond to energy price shocks — like the one that followed the US and Israeli attack on Iran in February — that can both feed inflation and send unemployment higher.

“Unlike the traditional Keynesian models, Woodford’s model recommends a cooling measure, such as increased interest rates, to avoid uncontrolled inflation,” the Nobel committee wrote. “His insight has made it possible to respond to recent supply shocks more effectively than during the oil crises of the 1970s.”

During the phone call broadcast at a news conference, Woodford said his work has stressed “the understanding of the people who are in the markets and making decisions about spending.”

Economics prize is last Nobel announcement this year

The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.

Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, but it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

Monday’s award was the second Nobel win for a Stanford University professor this year. Dr. Karl Deisseroth shared the medicine prize with Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their work that led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.

Business

OPEC, Non-OPEC Ministers Stress Critical Importance of Safeguarding Int’l Maritime Routes

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (L) at the Riyadh meeting on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (L) at the Riyadh meeting on Monday. (SPA)
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OPEC, Non-OPEC Ministers Stress Critical Importance of Safeguarding Int’l Maritime Routes

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (L) at the Riyadh meeting on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (L) at the Riyadh meeting on Monday. (SPA)

Ministers of OPEC and non-OPEC Participating Countries in the Declaration of Cooperation (DoC) met on the sidelines of the 17th IEF ministerial meeting and the 25th WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh on Monday.

The ministers reviewed market conditions and agreed to continue consultation with all OPEC+ countries, through already established mechanisms, including the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) and the OPEC and Non-OPEC Ministerial Meetings (ONOMM).

They reaffirmed their commitment to the decisions made on June 7, 2026 (41stONOMM) to achieve and sustain a stable oil market.

The ministers stressed the critical importance of safeguarding the international maritime routes to ensure the uninterrupted flow of energy.

They noted that the current interruption of energy flows has elevated the cost of shipping and insurance, which have reached unprecedented levels of more than one third of the commodity value, impeding the timely and efficient movement of crude oil and products, and placing additional inflationary pressures on the global economy.

These exceptionally elevated costs are ultimately transmitted across the oil value chain, increasing and prolonging the cost burden on producing and consuming countries and impacting global economic growth, they remarked.

The ministers will continue monitoring the situation and will engage with governments, industry stakeholders, and international organizations such as the IEF, IEA, and others to improve global shipping conditions.

Business

Saudi Energy Minister Signs MoUs on Energy Cooperation with Mongolia, Tanzania, Cyprus, and Mauritius

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Cyprus’s Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michael Damianos during the signing ceremony in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Cyprus’s Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michael Damianos during the signing ceremony in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
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Saudi Energy Minister Signs MoUs on Energy Cooperation with Mongolia, Tanzania, Cyprus, and Mauritius

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Cyprus’s Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michael Damianos during the signing ceremony in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Cyprus’s Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michael Damianos during the signing ceremony in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz signed in Riyadh on Monday four memoranda of understanding with ministers from Mongolia, Tanzania, Cyprus and Mauritius to strengthen cooperation across a range of energy fields.

The MoUs were signed on the sidelines of the 25th WPC Energy Congress, hosted by Saudi Arabia through October 15 under the theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All."

Prince Abdulaziz and Mongolia’s Deputy Prime Minister Togmid Dorjkhand signed an MoU to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in oil and gas and their derivatives, refining, petrochemicals, electricity, power interconnection, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and technologies and solutions related to climate change mitigation, including Circular Carbon Economy solutions.

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Tanzania’s Minister for Energy Juma Zuberi Homera during the signing ceremony. (SPA)

The MoU covers cooperation in digital transformation, innovation, cybersecurity applications and artificial intelligence in the energy sector. It seeks to develop strategic partnerships between the two countries to secure materials, products and services across energy sectors and their supply chains and technologies; promote the development and use of sustainable petrochemical materials in construction and other sectors; strengthen cooperation between energy companies; and support them in implementing large-scale electricity projects and harnessing renewable energy in both countries.

Prince Abdulaziz signed an MoU with Tanzania’s Minister for Energy Juma Zuberi Homera to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in the supply of refined petroleum products and explore opportunities related to associated infrastructure, assess opportunities in liquefied natural gas, exchange technical expertise in oil and gas exploration, and explore opportunities in petrochemical production.

The MoU covers electricity, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the exchange of technologies and solutions related to climate change mitigation, including clean cooking solutions and Circular Carbon Economy technologies and solutions. It further includes exploring opportunities related to the Oil Sustainability Program and transport and fuel infrastructure, as well as cooperation in digital transformation, innovation, cybersecurity applications and artificial intelligence in the energy sector.

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Mauritius’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade Dhananjay Ramful during the signing ceremony. (SPA)

Prince Abdulaziz and Cyprus’s Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michael Damianos signed an MoU establishing a framework for cooperation in oil and gas and their derivatives, refining, petrochemicals, electricity, clean hydrogen and its derivatives, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and technologies and solutions related to climate change mitigation, including Circular Carbon Economy technologies and solutions.

The MoU covers cooperation in digital transformation and cybersecurity applications in the energy sector, as well as efforts to advance and support shared international policy priorities through relevant multilateral negotiations, including under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.

It further provides for cooperation on the development and use of sustainable petrochemical materials in construction and other sectors, the development of appropriate infrastructure to expand energy access, and cooperation between companies operating in energy-related fields.

Saudi Minister of Energy and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and Mongolia’s Deputy Prime Minister Togmid Dorjkhand. (SPA)

Prince Abdulaziz signed an MoU with Mauritius’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade Dhananjay Ramful covering cooperation in oil and gas and their derivatives, refining, petrochemicals, electricity, clean hydrogen and its derivatives, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and technologies and solutions related to climate change mitigation, including Circular Carbon Economy technologies and solutions.

The MoU also covers cooperation in digital transformation and cybersecurity applications in the energy sector.

It provides for efforts to advance and support shared international policy priorities through relevant multilateral negotiations, including under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.

It covers cooperation on the development and use of sustainable petrochemical materials in construction and other sectors, as well as the development of appropriate infrastructure to expand energy access.