The business community in Dubai is bullish on the emirate's economic growth and its future prospects, according to a survey conducted by Department for Economic Development (DED).

The Exporter Confidence Survey was part of a DED extensive programme to track the level of economic activity in the previous and oncoming quarters of the year.

"The survey shows that the business community strongly believes that the economic growth the emirate is witnessing will continue," remarked Ali Ibrahim, deputy director general for economic development at DED.

"It seeks to complement the existing data collected by various governmental bodies by providing decision makers an insight into the business sentiment regarding their past experience and near-term business conditions," he added.

The survey will complement the existing data collected by various governmental bodies along with the outlooks by companies.

"It will help decision makers to develop strategies and policies including near term economic forecasts for their research, business or investment purposes," Ibrahim said.

The surveys also seek to create a platform to understand and analyze the changes that have taken place or are due to happen in the business sector, he added.

The survey methodology has been developed using established benchmarks that facilitate a drilling down of data to individual component parts based on the International Standard Industry Classification (ISIC).

This means decision makers can obtain the data relating to individual activity and thus allow for cross sector comparison, said Dr Ashraf Mahate, who designed and conducted the survey.

"In Dubai, 98.5 per cent of businesses are defined as either small or medium sized; therefore our survey seeks to understand their differing experiences," he explained.

"More importantly, we find that micro firms who are not only small but young have very different experiences and if they are to grow we need to understand them in more detail," he added.

The survey covered 98 senior managers from firms across different sectors relevant to exports. Approximately, three quarters dealt with goods while the rest related to the services sector.

According to him, the survey shows that exporters were bullish regarding their profit expectations for the next three months.

"Some 40 per cent of exporters expect either a substantial or moderate increase in profits while a further 30 per cent foresee no decline," he added.
 
"Although, all firms on average expect profits to increase in the next quarter, the highest incidence of substantial improvement is perceived among medium and micro sized firms. Firms tend to be far more bullish regarding international sales than domestic ones," Dr Mahate said.

The country’s firms, the expert said, have been more active in foreign markets and this has been illustrated by the fact that exports from the emirate have increased by 40 per cent in the first seven months of this year compared to the same period last year.
 
According to the survey, the most important export markets were GCC, India, Pakistan and South Asia.-TradeArabia News Service