Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), home to more than 500 Chinese companies from a variety of sectors, is keen to attract more Chinese innovators, entrepreneurs and tech start-ups into Dubai and to transform it into the innovation hub of the Middle East.
The free zone has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Beijing Government-backed innovation and startups hub Innoway to increase collaboration in the technology sector.
Innoway has incubated over 3,400 start-ups and raised a total of AED 4.7b in China.
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DMCC, said that DMCC continues to attract foreign direct investment to Dubai from key international markets including China and India.
Feryal Ahmadi, Chief Operating Officer at DMCC, said that Dubai has an ambitious innovation agenda, driven by the government and accelerated by the private sector, and innovation is in Dubai’s DNA and so too is collaboration.
Earlier this year, DMCC signed an agreement with Crypto Valley – a Swiss Government-supported initiative – to create a blockchain and cryptographic based business ecosystem in Dubai.
Nie Lixia, General Manager for Innoway, said that DMCC offers the ideal ecosystem for Chinese firms looking to expand across the Middle East, and will provide tremendous value to many of the start-ups.
China remains among the UAE’s largest trading partners. The volume of bilateral trade between the UAE and China reached AED 127b in the first nine months of 2019, a 6% increase compared to the same period in 2018.
Meanwhile, DMCC has added 805 new member companies in the first half of this year amid Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite a softer business climate, the months of May and June saw a noticeable uptick in new company registrations on par with previous years.
DMCC had witnessed a 5.4% year-on-year growth in new company registrations in 2019 to 1,969 and is now home to over 17,000 companies.
