DUBAI: Dubai’s non-oil trade jumped 16 percent in the first quarter and recovery in the emirate’s property sector will help keep the pace up this year despite a plunge in trade with Iran and global economic weakness, the Dubai customs head said yesterday.
“This year up to this quarter, we reached an approximately 16 percent growth in trade,” Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Director General of Dubai Customs said. Non-oil trade grew to Dh325.5bn ($88.6bn) in the first quarter from Dh280bn in the same period last year, the customs office said. A more detailed data breakdown was not immediately available.
“The main thing now is that growth in real estate starts picking up. With real estate developments there are many sectors that also start picking up,” he said on the sidelines of a world customs conference in the coastal desert city. Developers in Dubai are dusting off stalled building plans, encouraged by an economic recovery after a 50 percent drop in house prices from the 2008 peak triggered a series of debt restructurings in state firms.
Trade expanded 13 percent to Dh1,235bn, after a record 22 percent jump in 2011.
Growth in Dubai’s total non-oil trade slowed in 2012 partly due to a drop in business with Iran, as Western sanctions against Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme took toll.
The vast majority of trade between Iran and the Gulf Arab states flows through Dubai, long a major commercial hub for Tehran, but banks in Dubai cut back their Iran-related dealings after the US imposed tough sanctions in late 2011. Reuters
