The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s chief representative in China said he sees similarities between Dubai’s and Hong Kong’s respective roles in the United Arab Emirates and China.

Speaking at the UAE Investment Opportunities Forum on Monday, Daniel Sellers said, “Dubai is a financial hub and window on the world of the UAE, just like Hong Kong is the window” for the Chinese mainland.

“Many people have this misconceptions that Dubai has an oil-driven economy, but in fact, it only contributed to 2 percent of the GDP.”

The Emirate of Dubai, one of seven emirates in the UAE, had a GDP of 188.2 billion dirhams (US$51.2 billion) in the first half of 2020, with retail trades and the wholesale sector being the biggest contributors, generating abut a quarter of the value. Financial activities contributed 11.6 percent, while manufacturing and transportation each brought about 10 percent, figures from the Dubai Statistics Center show.

The Emirate of Dubai, one of seven emirates in the UAE, had a GDP of 188.2 billion dirhams (US$51.2 billion) in the first half of 2020, with retail trades and the wholesale sector being the biggest contributors, generating abut a quarter of the value

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“The mainland has been the largest trading partner with Dubai for eight years,” Sellers said, adding that the figures in 2020 remained strong against the backdrop of the pandemic. “It shows how important it is to Dubai,” he added.

The value of trade between Dubai and the Chinese mainland in 2020 reached $39.4 billion, down 5.2 percent compared with the year earlier due to the pandemic’s toll on the imports and re-exports on the Middle East’s largest trading hub, Sellers said. “But the figures are still robust,” he said, “Dubai is recovering well from the pandemic, and the UAE is also leading the way in recovering.”

“Dubai is a window for Chinese goods to the world,” Sellers said, adding that 70 percent of the imports from the mainland were re-exported to the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

Benefiting from the incoming investment from the world’s second-largest economy, sectors such as high technology, real estate and finance are seeing huge opportunities, Sellers said.

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Also speaking at the forum was Humaid Omran Al Shamsi, director of the real estate promotion department at the Dubai Land Department, who said that investors’ growing interests in real estate is one of the most interesting trends resulting from COVID-19. The transactions value in Dubai’s real estate sector in 2021 surged 78 percent compared with 2020, he said.

“We are not limiting the services because of the pandemic. We are proud of the current market statistics and looking forward to more foreign investment in the future,” he added

The online forum was held by the Consulate General of the United Arab Emirates in Hong Kong in partnership with the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in the runup to the Dubai Expo, the first-ever World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region. Themed “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”, the six-month expo will open in October in the United Arab Emirates with delegates from private and public sectors as well as organizations from 192 countries and regions.