Dubai Private Sector Showing Robust Growth

Dubai’s private sector started 2017 on an upbeat note by recording the sharpest rise in output in almost two years, new data suggests.

Travel and tourism continued to drive the upswing supported by wholesale, retail and construction sectors in January signaling the strongest improvement in non-oil private sector business conditions, the Emirates National Bank of Dubai Economy Tracker Index shows, Arabian Business reported.

Buoyed by the good start of the year, Dubai’s private sector companies remained optimistic about their prospects for activity growth over coming years. Survey respondents commented on new projects and forecasts of improving market conditions, the bank said.

With a diversified economy that focuses on tourism and international business services, Dubai has been outperforming most of the (Persian) Gulf Arab oil exporting economies (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) in an era of low oil prices.

Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, cabinet member and minister of economy, expects the country’s GDP growth this year to remain almost steady compared to 2016 at 3%.

The seasonally-adjusted Emirates NBD index registered 57.1 at the start of the year, up from 55.9 to signal the fastest rate of improvement in 23 months. All the three key sub-sectors monitored by the survey recorded marked rates of expansion.

While travel and tourism remained the best-performing category (index at 57.8), wholesale and retail (57.7) and construction (55.4) closely followed with better performance.

Despite the steep increase in business activity, job creation was modest overall, although the pace of staff hiring picked up slightly since December.

The headline index is derived from individual diffusion indices which measure changes in output, new orders, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks of purchased goods.