The Dubai Economic Development Corporation (DEDC), established as the economic development arm of the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), is an essential organization that drives growth in one of the economic powerhouses of the UAE: Dubai.
In the emirate, DEDC is at the forefront of fostering diversification and attracting foreign investment and global talent. DEDC also focuses on advancing innovation, AI, and technology to position Dubai as a global hub for investment and entrepreneurship.
In this feature, Hadi Badri, CEO of DEDC, highlights the organization’s role in achieving the goals set under the Dubai Economic Agenda — and how DEDC is fulfilling its mandate through various initiatives and partnerships.
As the UAE celebrates its Eid Al Etihad, what does this milestone mean to you personally, and how is DEDC contributing to Dubai’s role in the nation’s growth story?
Eid Al Etihad is a special time for everyone in the UAE. It is a moment to celebrate our unity, progress and visionary leadership. It is also an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come as Emiratis and residents alike and to renew our commitment towards a better future for all. At the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), we consistently remind ourselves of the ambitious objectives set by the Dubai Economic Agenda, D33, which aims to double the size of Dubai’s economy in the decade up to 2033, and further consolidate Dubai’s position as a leading global city for business and leisure.
Guided by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, Dubai has long been a gateway to the region, attracting global businesses and investments through business-friendly and talent-first policies.
As DET’s economic development arm, the Dubai Economic Development Corporation (DEDC) plays an integral orchestration role in building on the city’s existing global status and achieving the D33 Agenda objectives. We partner with a range of stakeholders to accelerate economic growth, increase diversification, boost foreign and private investments and enhance Dubai’s competitiveness. We also work on initiatives to attract global talent and support Dubai’s ambition to be the best city to visit, live, work and invest in.
As a government department, we have a mix of long-standing and new strategic partnerships with both public and private entities, both locally and internationally. These partnerships demonstrate our steadfast commitment to attracting high-value investments and maintaining sustainable growth.
As we celebrate the 53rd Eid Al Etihad, we reaffirm our commitment to taking inspiration from our city’s visionary leadership and solidifying Dubai’s position as a global leader in economic opportunity, talent attraction, and ease of doing business. Working collaboratively across the public and private sectors, we continue to see progress year on year, and we are excited about what the future holds.
What are the recent initiatives DEDC is working on to expand and diversify Dubai’s economy?
DEDC is at the forefront of diversifying Dubai’s economy, focusing on sectors that are critical to enabling long-term growth, such as digital technologies, healthcare and education. Our initiatives aim to ensure that Dubai remains the preferred destination for global businesses and investments, underpinned by a strong commitment to collaborations and partnerships.
Almost two years since the launch of the D33 Agenda, we’ve seen significant momentum in terms of business acceleration. Firstly, we have a number of priority sectors like logistics and real estate that are achieving double-digit growth rates. Dubai continues to lead the world in foreign direct investment (FDI), with an increasing number of source markets investing in Dubai and more and more mega deals completing — each valued in the billions of Dirhams. In terms of projects, it has been three years in a row where we are ahead of the curve on FDI, while new business licensing is up 40 percent year-on-year. So, people are coming to Dubai with their families, establishing their lives and businesses here and investing their time and capital here.
Partnerships for Dubai are critical for economic growth and for us to deliver on the ambitious targets of our leadership. Historical data shows that the most sustainable and fastest-growing economies are the most open, and Dubai fully embraces this mindset through its policies and pursuit of win-win partnerships. The UAE has committed to signing free trade agreements or Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPA) with strategic partners around the world. These agreements span trade, payments and facilitate FDI. For example, the UAE-India CEPA, signed in 2022, accelerated bilateral trade by 15 percent, while strengthening investment flows and enabling significant breakthroughs in trading and technology partnerships.
One of our key initiatives at DEDC, contributing directly to the D33 Agenda, has been the Dubai Traders Program. The genesis of the program is that trade has been a key driver of Dubai’s economy throughout history and is an integral part of our DNA as a city. As trade has become more digital and more global, facilitated by e-commerce and logistics, we wanted to activate digital channels for Dubai-based trading businesses to scale their operations and reach more customers, both domestically and internationally. We have established partnerships with noon and Amazon to support Dubai’s SMEs to build an online presence, digitize their processes and expand to new markets — and we will forge additional partnerships to provide more solutions for traders to scale their businesses.
Meanwhile, collaborations with esteemed institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) drive advancements in research and development and education, aligning with Dubai’s focus on knowledge-based growth.
Through active engagement with global business communities, we look to remain ahead of market trends and adapt to evolving needs. Whether at international forums or through local dialogues, we prioritize enhancing the ease of doing business in Dubai. By strengthening ties with global stakeholders, including through public-private collaborations, we are maximizing the benefits of CEPAs and other agreements. This approach helps us build a resilient, diversified economy that attracts investment across emerging sectors, from technology to sustainable industries.
How is DEDC helping to attract global companies and foreign investments to Dubai, especially in sectors like AI and advanced technology?
Dubai and the wider UAE’s approach to AI exemplifies our bold leadership and a future-focused mindset. Unlike many markets that approach AI with caution, Dubai and the UAE have embraced it as a transformative force, leading the charge by actioning a number of pioneering initiatives. In 2017, the UAE became the first nation to appoint a Minister of State for AI, highlighting its commitment to innovation. Earlier this year, 22 Chief AI Officers were appointed across Dubai Government entities, including DET, to accelerate the adoption of AI, enhance efficiency and improve engagement with customers. These initiatives underscore the UAE’s determination to lead the global AI agenda, offering optimism, credibility and a proven track record that attracts talent and investments worldwide.
Dubai is committed to becoming a global hub for AI and advanced technology, and we are at the forefront of this effort. With DET’s own Chief AI Officer leading a number of key initiatives, we actively engage with technology and innovation-oriented businesses worldwide, showcase Dubai’s value proposition as the ideal ecosystem for innovation, and support them in establishing a presence in the emirate.
We support these global companies that are established in Dubai with their domestic expansion. We offer them market insights and connect them with relevant local stakeholders to explore collaborations and partnerships, ensuring a seamless integration into the local economy. Recent initiatives like Sandbox Dubai, one of the D33 Agenda’s transformational projects, provides a testbed for AI-driven solutions, reinforcing our reputation as a city that embraces cutting-edge technologies.
Our mandate is not limited to attracting technology-focused companies. We work on attracting and supporting the set up of businesses and investors across sectors that are keen to contribute to Dubai’s economy, leverage Dubai as a platform for global expansion and work in partnership with innovators to adopt advanced technologies and AI to improve their productivity. In doing so, we ensure Dubai’s attractiveness as an investment destination, further strengthening the emirate’s position at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
What role does innovation play in DEDC’s efforts to boost Dubai’s economic competitiveness, and how are you adopting cutting-edge technologies?
Enhancing Dubai’s economic competitiveness in a fast-evolving global landscape requires a strong emphasis on innovation. For us, innovation isn’t just a priority — it is a foundational part of our strategy. Aligned with the D33 Agenda and our focus to increase economic productivity through innovation, we focus on fostering sustainable growth, resilience and digitization across all sectors.
Our approach includes initiatives like Sandbox Dubai, which facilitates experimentation and development of transformative solutions in areas like the gig economy and proptech, while partnerships with global academic and digital leaders create a culture of learning and continuous improvement. These measures ensure businesses in Dubai can access and utilize cutting-edge technologies to enhance operations.
A crucial aspect of this is extending the spirit of innovation to traditional industries by encouraging them to adopt new digital tools and ways of working. By simplifying regulatory frameworks and embracing digital transformation in the public sector, we’re leading by example and encouraging businesses of all types and sizes to embrace next-generation solutions, reinforcing Dubai’s position as a global hub where innovation flourishes.
This thinking and approach also extended to completely new sectors. Dubai demonstrated remarkable agility in establishing a regulatory framework for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). This process of engaging with the global ecosystem commenced in November 2021, which highlighted the need for an independent regulatory construct at the convergence of the Traditional and New Economy. By March 2022, Law number 4 had been enacted, officially establishing the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) as the world’s first — and to date, only — authority exclusively responsible for the virtual assets economy.
VARA now plays a pivotal role in shaping Dubai’s advanced legal landscape, aimed at safeguarding investors and setting the benchmark for cross-border interoperability and effective governance for the global virtual asset sector, aligning with Dubai’s vision for an inclusive Future Economy.
We are also able to leverage the implementation of the Dubai Unified License, which has made doing business easier and faster by providing a single trusted source of information accessible to anyone who needs it.
Talent is often described as the core of economic growth. What is DEDC doing to attract top global talent to Dubai, and how do you ensure they feel empowered to thrive here?
Attracting and empowering skilled talent supports the city’s ambition to become a top three global city. Recognizing that a thriving economy is built on exceptional talent, we focus on initiatives that attract and retain the best and brightest minds who can feel empowered in Dubai to contribute to the economy and grow personally and professionally to achieve their full potential.
Dubai offers a unique combination of liveability, career growth and global connectivity, positioning itself as the benchmark of a truly global city. With connections to more than 400 cities by air and sea, the city’s infrastructure facilitates seamless global access.
Initiatives, such as the Golden Visa program and tailored residency schemes, highlight Dubai’s commitment to attracting top talent from all around the world to contribute to Dubai’s acceleration, productivity and pursuit of excellence.
Dubai’s nimble and fast-evolving economy has established the city as a top destination for international investors, digital-first scale-ups, savvy business entrepreneurs and multinational corporations, thus underscoring its competitiveness and appeal to global talent. In the first half of 2024, Dubai was ranked no.1 globally for attracting greenfield FDI projects across a range of industries, including tourism, real estate, artificial intelligence, logistics and fintech. This has also seen Dubai continue to hold a top five global position for jobs created through inward FDI, with the city experiencing a surge in talent attraction across key sectors such as business services, IT services and financial services.
Attracting businesses and talent go hand-in-hand as a virtuous cycle. As Dubai continues to attract foreign investment and new businesses, global talent is following suit. In parallel, smart money follows smart talent. We are keen to empower and celebrate talent and entrepreneurs to achieve the best version of themselves in our beloved city. Talent will continue to look for places with a track record. They will look for optimism and they will look for credibility — and Dubai is delivering positively on all these fronts.
