DUBAI: Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry is considering opening an office in Iran and will soon open one in India, Chairman Majid Saif Al Ghurair told Zawya in an interview on Tuesday. Dubai Chamber, which was established in 1965 as a non-profit public organisation to support and represent the emirate’s business community, currently has seven international representative offices in Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and China. “We hope of course to open markets soon, if we could in Iran,” Al Ghurair said. “Iran would depend on circumstances,” he said, adding that there was no set timeframe.
Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states are wary of Shi’ite Muslim Iran’s power in the Middle East, especially regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia. But Gulf trade hub Dubai, which is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Iranians, has maintained strong trade and investment links to the Islamic Republic. After world powers and Iran reached an agreement in 2013 for Tehran to curb its nuclear activity in exchange for an easing of international sanctions, Dubai ruler and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, called on the international community to support the deal. (Read more here). The bulk of Iran’s imports from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which amounted to $37 billion in 2015, were exports from the UAE that were imported via the ports of Dubai, according to local media reports. Iran accounted for around 16 percent of the UAE’s re-export market in 2014.
Al Ghurair said that the chamber would move to open an office in India “as soon as possible” and that it could happen this year. “We have targeted countries in the future like India, which is today one of the big economies near us,” he said. “We are interested in such nearby economies so that we cooperate with them in a big way that would achieve economic development to the region.” India is the third biggest exporter to the UAE, accounting for about 9.2 percent of the UAE’s imports. India is also a big importer of goods from the Gulf Arab state, importing around 14.9 percent of the UAE’s exports and around 8.7 percent of the UAE’s re-exports, according to a report by issued on the website of the Khaleej Times newspaper last year. Africa and central Asia currently remain important markets for the Dubai chamber. It began opening international offices in 2012 and this year will focus on Latin America, with an office due to open in Brazil in April and an outpost in Argentina currently being considered.
