Dubai on January 4 announced an ambitious plan aiming to boost foreign trade and investment, and double the size of its economy by 2033.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, unveiled in a series of tweets, the Dubai Economic Agenda, dubbed “D33”, with targets totalling 32 trillion dirhams ($8.7 trillion). The plan would “double the size of Dubai’s economy in the next decade and consolidate its position among the top three global cities,” Sheikh Mohammed said in a post. The objectives would be achieved through “100 transformative projects,” he tweeted.
The new economic agenda would also add 400 cities to Dubai’s list of trading partners, increasing foreign trade in the coming decade by 44% to 25.6 trillion dirhams. According to Sheikh Mohammed, it would also see foreign direct investment in Dubai exceed 650 billion dirhams within 10 years.
Despite its warning that a third of the world’s economy will slip into recession in 2023 amid slowing growth in the United States, the European Union and China, the International Monetary Fund in November predicted “robust” economic growth in the UAE, with projected GDP growth of 6% in 2022. Dubai’s GDP stood at 307.5 billion dirhams during the first nine months of 2022, showing a 4.6% rise year-on-year from 2021.
