The gap between Dubai and Abu Dhabi as the most favoured place to do business in the GCC (and, by extenion, the UAE) is widening, with Dubai destined to go further ahead over the next 12 months, according to a survey of business leaders in the Middle East. The ‘Leaders in Dubai Business Forum – 2006 Doing Business in the GCC’ survey questioned more than 400 senior executives from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria, about their plans and attitudes towards doing business in the GCC.

The report from the survey found that Dubai was the undisputed business capital of the GCC with more than half (52 per cent) of the companies represented doing most of their GCC business in the emirate and 23 per cent wanting to do more. By comparison only 4.4 per cent did most of their business in Abu Dhabi and although 13.5 per cent of all of the companies said they wanted to increase their business in the capital it meant Abu Dhabi would continue to slip further behind Dubai.

Only Saudi Arabia appears able to challenge Dubai, with 25 per cent of companies doing most of their GCC business there and 31 per cent wanting to do more. However, Saudi Arabia was voted the most difficult to do business by some margin while the UAE was overwhelmingly the easiest. Overall, business confidence in the GCC is among the highest in the world. The survey found that a massive 92 per cent of the companies surveyed expect to increase the amount of business they do in the region over the next 12 months.