Swiss private bank Julius Baer has appointed a new chief executive in Dubai as well as four relationship managers, in an expansion which, the bank said, will continue as planned in spite of recent regional turmoil.

The appointments had been planned for some time and were not influenced or deterred by the unfolding crisis in the region involving the restructuring of developer Dubai World's debt, a Julius Baer spokesman said on Tuesday.

'We should look beyond the current slowdown. The region continues to offer important opportunities in wealth management. There is a lot of wealth around and a lot of wealth creation,' Jan Vonder Muehll said.

Peter Schaer will take over as Dubai CEO from April 1, succeeding Rolf Schaerer who will maintain his role as head of Indian subcontinent. The four new relationship managers will join an existing team in Dubai from January.

Prior to accepting the role, Schaer was head of wealth management at UBS in Dubai for six years, Baer said.

Baer said it was the first international private bank to be granted a licence to operate in the Dubai International Financial Centre in 2004, and also has regional offices in Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Istanbul.

The group had total client assets of 234 billion Swiss francs ($227 billion) at the end of October, with assets under management accounting for around 150 billion.-Reuters