The Dubai Chamber said in its report, “Full and partial city-lockdown measures are bringing demand in key markets to a standstill … The double-shock impact is pushing economic activity down to levels not seen even during the financial crisis.” The report is titled Impact of Covid-19 on Dubai Business Community. 

The survey was conducted on 1,228 CEOs across various sectors during the period between April 16 and April 22. This period saw the strictest lockdown imposed by the government. It appears that three-quarters of respondents were small businesses comprising less than 20 employees.

The Chamber’s spokesperson said, “We expect a significant improvement in the business confidence indicators in the coming weeks and months, as companies are expected to resume their operations.” Also, two-thirds of the respondents saw a moderate-to-high risk of running out of business in the next six months.

According to data, 27 percent of respondents expected to lose their business in the next one month and 43 percent expect to run out of it in the coming six months. In fact, Dubai is one of the most diversified economies in the Gulf region, depending on sectors such as hospitality, tourism, entertainment, logistics, property, and retail.

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The emirate is ranked ninth after Shanghai in the second position followed by Amsterdam in the third position. Singapore attained the top ranking for import and export business coupled with a well-established logistics ecosystem and an easy access to markets. However, Dubai has outperformed many global cities in logistics, cost and market connectivity. 

Movinga is a German online platform specialising in relocation. 

According to the study, San Francisco is the best city to establish a tech startup, while London and New York take second and third place respectively. While many global cities with affordable real estate are favourable for opening a new restaurant — it can be hard to find good manpower in those places. Another factor to consider is cities where the locals can afford eating out but do not have a restaurant culture versus cities where affordability of eating out is quite low.

Earlier this month, Dubai and LinkedIn collaborated for the launch of Open for Business’ that enables freelancers and SME lenders to add their services to their LinkedIn profiles. This global feature was launched in Dubai owing to its evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 2016, Dubai was ranked among the top five cities for entrepreneurship, according to a real estate firm Knight Frank.  

Dubai is committed to support entrepreneurship through economic expansion that facilities business activities and attracts talent. Four future oriented labs were established in the emirate to focus on aviation, entrepreneurship, blockchain and energy. Dubai’s robust infrastructure ecosystem allows SMEs to thrive — helping establish itself as a global hub for entrepreneurship and innovation. 

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