Dubai is an incubator for SME, Hamdan says

PHOTO

Tuesday, Jun 02, 2015

Dubai: Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, said that Dubai is an incubator for high growth group of small and medium-sized companies, pursuing innovations in diverse fields.

He made the announcement in line with the launching of the third cycle of Dubai SME100 which developed by Dubai SME, the agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai mandated to develop the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in Dubai, to identifies and ranks companies based on a set of financial and non-financial performance indicators.

Currently, small and medium enterprises represent 95 per cent of the businesses operating in Dubai today and account for about 42 per cent of the total workforce and 40 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the emirate, according to Sami Al Qamzi, Director General of DED.

“This vital sector is a major source of innovations, products, and services as well as new markets and business models,” he said.

Al Qamzi said the Dubai SME100 initiative aims to enhance overall SME performance in Dubai, which in turn will reflect positively on the economic landscape in the emirate.

“We are delighted to see the initiative growing in strength in terms of the number of companies applying,” he said.

Abdul Baset Al Janahi, CEO of Dubai SME said that the 4,532 companies, which registered in the third cycle of Dubai SME100 represented an increase of 49 per cent compared to the 3,041 companies registered in 2013.

“The companies registered in 2014 had a total revenue estimated at Dh69.5 billion and a workforce of around 144,000. The lion’s share of the participants in 2014 came from the Services sector by 57 per cent while 34.5 per cent came from Trading and 8.4 per cent from manufacturing.

In the second phase, the 200 shortlisted companies will be evaluated on the basis of their financial performance over the last three years, with focus on cumulative growth in revenue and profits.

Staff Report