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29 March 2024

One-stop business centre in offing

DED said the Business Centre, to be launched soon, will be a “one-stop” facility to serve businessmen and investors. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Nadim Kawach

Abu Dhabi is pushing ahead with a landmark plan to create a one-stop Business Centre that will ensure investors will get all services at the same time and support the emirate’s target to sharply boost foreign capital.

The Business Centre is the latest in a series of initiatives launched by the Abu Dhabi government as part of its long-term development strategy, dubbed Vision 2030, according to the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development.

“The efforts to further development and economic prosperity included all areas which facilitate doing business in the emirate. The Government has adopted and initiated reforms in order to facilitate the commencement of business, by  minimizing the procedures for obtaining licenses, and reducing the number of required documents, among other procedures in that direction.”

DED said the Business Centre, to be launched soon, will be a “one-stop” facility to serve businessmen and investors.

“It will render a spectrum of service including, business licensing, staffing and employment, building  permits, facilitating the organizing of exhibitions and conferences, provision of trade and economic information, business consulting and business aiding services to international investors. Moreover the Centre will maintain an efficient proposals and complaints system.”

It said the Centre aims to facilitate completing at least 95 per cent of the new licenses that need to have third-party approvals, within a maximum time frame of four working days. The future status of the Centre takes into account limiting the business relationship only between the investing client and the Centre, it said.

Related local or federal government entities will be linked electronically with the Centre while the issuance of building permits will be done electronically through a linkage between DED and the Abu Dhabi Municipality.

The report said the project is part of Abu Dhabi’s Vision 2030, which aims to expand foreign direct investment (FDI) flow into the emirate to 23 per cent of GDP by 2030 in line with an annual growth target of nine per cent.

It said Abu Dhabi is also planning to increase non-oil exports to 11 per cent of GDP with the aim of supporting diversification, guarding the economy against volatile oil sales, and ensuring sustainable growth.

“The relationship between the quality of investments and economic diversification is interrelated in nature… the distribution of investment flow among the different economic sectors will support economic diversification while the continuing diversification efforts will lead to stability and reduce GDP volatility, which would contribute to attracting more investment.”

The report noted that in order to achieve the goals of the diversification programme, the first five-year plan targeted the direction of 31.6 per cent of total investments towards the tourism sector, and about 27.8 per cent to petrochemicals. Trade and logistics services will account for 15.1per cent.

It said renewable energy share will be 12.4 per cent, while manufacturing and basic industries (except petrochemicals) will amount to 7.7 per cent.

To facilitate property registration for investors, Abu Dhabi has adopted a set of measures through the introduction of electronic land management system (eLMS) in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western Region.

“It is worth mentioning that the emirate has become more open to foreign capital, where foreigners may own property by 100 per cent in special cases in free zones….to expedite legal proceedings and reduce related effects on the business environment, the judicial system in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi introduced appropriate reforms to that end, whereas the Government of Abu Dhabi launched a campaign to modernize reform and develop the judicial system through the restructuring of the Judicial Department of the emirate. Those efforts have led to the establishment of Supreme Judicial Council (SJC),” it said.

“The efforts of the emirate to develop the business environment also included the modernization of ports infrastructure, through the construction of Khalifa Port, which has started operations. In the context of developing performance of companies operating in the emirate, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry launched the ‘Abu Dhabi Corporate Governance Centre’ in 2009 with the aim of encouraging and supporting public and private sectors to adopt the best international practices in applying the rules of governance.”

DED said the restructuring of Abu Dhabi’s economy and the diversification of the production base are among the biggest challenges which face the government.

It said Vision 2030 seeks to achieve diversification through a number of changes in the structure of the economy so that the oil sector becomes the leading sector of the economic development process, together with the other economic sectors.  “Attention will equally be paid to supporting exports of industrial non-oil sectors in order to create a blend of more balanced sustainable sectors,” it said.

“The business environment has received considerable attention among the priorities of Vision 2030, as one of the main pillars of economic diversification. The well developed business environment in the emirate will directly contribute to increasing the volume and quality of investment flow into the emirate.”