Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

Dubai prepares laws to support digital businesses

Ahmad Bin Byat, vice chairman of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy. The companies that survive are 'the smart ones', he said Wam
Ahmad Bin Byat, vice chairman of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy. The companies that survive are 'the smart ones', he said
  • Government plans ‘a lot’ of regulations
  • Digital businesses are ‘different’
  • Estimated 120,000 in emirate

Dubai is preparing to roll out a wave of regulations aimed at supporting small and digital businesses, a government official has confirmed.

“We need to recognise that digital business are different from traditional businesses, and we need to treat them as such,” Ahmad Bin Byat, vice chairman of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, told AGBI.

“We are working on a lot of regulations for small and digital businesses,” he said.

Bin Byat did not provide specific details about the expected regulations but said that the emirate must improve policies for digital businesses across several key areas.

He noted that Dubai has long attracted digital companies, a trend that has “accelerated” as it continues to refine its regulatory, financial, and social landscape.

The number of digital companies in Dubai is growing at about 30 percent per annum, outpacing the 13 to 15 percent growth seen in other sectors, according to Dubai Chamber data. 

The emirate now hosts more than 120,000 digital businesses, along with a notable rise in companies working on digital transformation.

However, Bin Byat said digital businesses face “intrinsic challenges”, such as a very high failure rate, challenges related to payments, access to markets and delivery of products or services.

“The high failure rate [is] because the start rate is easy,” he said.

“Our support should be very specific, backed with science, backed with data, so that we improve the chances of success for these companies because knowing that most of them are not going to make it is not a good start.”

Despite these hurdles, Bin Byat maintained that the bar for entry should be raised.

“Dubai is an open market,” he said. “Anybody can come and start a business. We need to encourage failure as well.”

Bin Byat said initiatives are also underway to address the difficulties digital businesses face when trying to open a bank account in Dubai.

“I must admit that opening bank accounts for digital companies is a challenge,” he said.

“It’s a problem for a good reason… because it’s very difficult to regulate and govern online businesses. [However,] we will see more specific banking services for the digital sector coming up in the future.”

Meanwhile, businesses in the UAE are also contending with rising operational costs. 

Cost inflation reached a two-year high this summer with the pace of growth during July dropping to the lowest in three years, according to recent Purchase Managers Index data from S&P Global. 

“[The cost of operating a business] will never get less,” Bin Byat said. 

“It’s just a factor of inflation, a factor of the economy… the smart ones are the ones who survive.”