32,256 business licenses issued in eight months in UAE

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ABU DHABI - Signalling growing investor confidence in the country, a total of 32,256 business licenses were issued in the UAE over the first eight months of the year, bringing to 572,615 the total number of business permits in the country, a growth of 6 pc from 540,359 by the end of December.

The significant increase in business licenses corroborates the economic growth estimates made by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates which projected real GDP in the country to grow by 2.4 pc in 2019 in its latest report.

In more detail, Abu Dhabi and Dubai accounted for 70.6 pc of the total number of business licenses issued across the country by the end of August, namely 404,492 licenses, according to the Ministry of Economy's National Economic Register.

Dubai came first issuing 268,574 business licenses followed by 135,918 in Abu Dhabi until the end of August 2019.

In terms of legal status, a total of 181,989 licenses were issued for limited liability companies while 78,491were registered for individual establishments and 3,935 for single-member limited liability companies. A total of 2140 were issued for foreign companies, 848 for Gulf firms, with the rest of licenses divided between public joint stock companies, private joint stock companies and partnership en commendam companies.

In Abu Dhabi, a total of 86,837 licenses were issued for individual establishments, 27,590 for limited liability companies, 17,779 for company branches while the rest was divided between corporations, private companies and single-member companies as well as public joint stock companies.

In Sharjah, a total of 82,825 licenses were issued by the end of August, 53,458 of which were for individual firms and 23,582 licenses for limited liability companies, with the rest divided over other types of firms.