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DUBAI: Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) said it would triple the number of finance firms in the free zone by 2024, aiming to entrench its position as the Middle East’s most prominent banking hub, despite growing competition.
DIFC’s growth, particularly in the years after it was created in 2004, intially came mainly from European and US companies, but half of the expansion targeted for the next decade will come from other emerging markets, the ‘south-south trade corridor’ from Latin America to South Asia, especially India and China, DIFC governor Essa Kazim said.
The other half of the growth will come from expanding existing activities such as investment banking and reinsurance, as well as pulling in more family-owned investment offices and asset management businesses, Kazim said at a news conference to announce DIFC’s strategy for the next 10 years.
“Between high net worth individual assets, sovereign wealth assets and the pension funds, assets of the region stand at $7 to $8 trillion but less then $1 trillion is being managed from the region. We want to change that,” he said.
In November, Kazim said the free zone would double over the next decade but the 10-year strategy envisions even faster growth.