The UAE economy gained momentum at the right time by posting a 6 per cent growth in new business licences this year, reflecting growing investor confidence in the country ahead of the one-year countdown to Expo 2020 Dubai that starts next month.

Latest official data indicates that a total of 32,256 new business lincences were issued across the UAE during first eight months of 2019, bringing the tally of active businesses to 572,615 from 540,359 at the end of December.

Abu Dhabi and Dubai remained investors' top choices to start new businesses in the UAE as the two emirates accounted for 70.6 per cent of the total number of business licences issued by the end of August, according to the Ministry of Economy's National Economic Register.

Dubai held the first spot by issuing 268,574 business licences, followed by Abu Dhabi and Sharjah that granted 135,918 and 82,825 business permits, respectively, in the January-August 2019 period.