Dubai non-oil trade continued to grow as it reached AED 377 billion with 18% of increase rate by the end of August 2010 as compared to AED 320 billion during the same period last year.

H.E. Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Executive Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation and Dubai Customs Director General said that there are a number of factors which contributed to this rise in Dubai international trade exchange; especially with the huge logistic services the emirate provides and its advanced infrastructure besides the strategic location and the flexible and competitive set of legislations. Moreover, the positive stability of the economic indicators has rendered Dubai an international trade hub and the favorable investment destination.

H.E. Ahmed Butti stated that Dubai direct exports scored the highest growth rate throughout the past five years exceeding AED 44 billion by the end of August 2010 with 39 per cent increase rate. “This reflects on the trust put in the Emirati goods in external markets and proves its competitiveness and high quality.” He said.

H.E. Ahmed Butti said as well that the re-exporting activity of the non-oil products broke the records during the first eight months this year in comparison with the past five years. They amounted to AED 93 billion with 20 per cent increase rate as apposed to the same period of 2009 which registered AED 78 billion for re-exporting. “This confirms the efficiency of the provided facilitations to the cargo companies and the exporters as well as the pioneering presence Dubai has in the field of regional and international goods movement.” He pointed out.

H.E. further noted that the statistics issued by Dubai Customs reveals a simultaneous boost in the imports during the first eight months of 2010 with a total value exceeding AED 239 billion and growing by 14% from the imports movement during the same period last year which scored AED 211 billion. Such a fact visibly demonstrates the local market growth and its openness to the international markets as well as the purchase power improvement.

H.E. Ahmed Butti believes that Dubai direct trade exchanges with the world will continue to grow for the next few months of 2010 due to the accelerating growth in trade activity usually witnessed during the last few months of every year if compared with the other intervals. He also considered that the existing and the currently executed expansion projects play a major role in meeting the increasing demands on the importing and exporting services especially after the inauguration of Al Maktoum International Airport for cargo handling in addition to the hi-tech machines used for inspecting containers in Jebel Ali Port as well as the continuation of expansion projects in Customs facilities and ports infrastructures. Adding to that, the launching of Mirsal 2 system which introduces electronic customs clearance solutions that help clients complete customs transactions swiftly and efficiently as well as the recently released Business To Government (B2G) channel which was put in place- as part of Mirsal 2 system- in order to handle the large business volume of the companies carrying out a sizeable amount of customs transactions.

Furthermore, statistics issued by Dubai Customs for the first eight months of 2010 showed that India has topped Dubai imports list with AED 45 billion by 19% of the aggregate value. Whereas China came second place with AED 29 billion and by 12%, followed by the US which contributed to the 8% of Dubai total imports with a value of AED 18.7 billion, then came Germany and Japan which scored AED 12 billion and AED 11 billion of imports values respectively.