Dubai headed for top of Islamic economy, chief says

Several initiatives already been launched in support of the plan to put Dubai at the centre of a global economy potentially worth nearly US$7 trillion in three years’ time.

Abdulla Al Awar, chief executive Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

Dubai is on the way to meeting its ambitious target to be the capital of the global Islamic economy, according to the executive charged with seeing the project through.

“We have strong infrastructure as a foundation, and I’m confident that Dubai will do it in the time frame, said Abdulla Mohammed Al Awar, the chief executive of the Dubai Islamic Economy Centre. “We’ve met such targets in the past and made Dubai what it is today.”

Mr Al Awar, a former chief executive of the Dubai International Financial Centre, said that several initiatives had already been launched in support of the plan to put Dubai at the centre of a global economy potentially worth nearly US$7 trillion in three years’ time.

The strategy, announced last year by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, aims to put in place seven pillars of Islamic financial and economic measures in the next two-and-a-half years.

The pillars are finance, halal industry, tourism, digital infrastructure, arts, knowledge and standards. More than 40 individual initiatives have been identified as essential to complete the project.

“We have made progress in finance and banking, in sukuk, in some of the knowledge initiatives and in the halal clusters introduced in free zones. We may introduce extra new initiatives as we go along because there are lots of new ideas being progressed,” Mr Al Awar said.

He said there was a need for global Islamic indicators to quantify Dubai’s progress, and that new moves could coincide with global events taking place in the emirate. Dubai stages the World Islamic Economic Forum for the first time this autumn.

On standardisation, one of the key aspects of the aim to be a global hub, Mr Al Awar said that Dubai was talking to standards authorities in the 57 countries of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation to achieve mutual recognition agreements on “bare minimum standards” in halal and other parts of the Islamic economy.

He added that a team from Dubai had been to Malaysia, which is one of the other centres of the global Islamic economy. “Malaysia and the rest of South East Asia have got their own big Islamic populations, so Dubai is well-placed to serve the rest of the global economy.”

He said he did not see Dubai in a “conflict situation” with London, a third hub for Islamic financial services.

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