Cover Story
An optimistic outlook Neil Petch, Chairman & Co-founder, Virtuzone highlights how the UAE ranks higher in doing business compared to other countries in the Mideast region and how businesses can benefit from the country’s business conducive environment. How will UAE-based businesses benefit from a borderless business environment? A borderless economy refers to a situation whereby a Canadian entrepreneur/ investor runs an e-commerce platform that sells Chinese manufactured products to customers in Africa. The question becomes why the investor is running their business from Canada when they can do business from the UAE, a country that is naturally positioned as an international trade hub situated between Asia and Europe in on the east and west respectively as well as the CIS to the north and Africa to the south. As Virtuzone, what we can do is give this investor/entrepreneur insight on how they can run their business better. This insight includes how the investor/entrepreneur can reduce operating cost, the infrastructure and logistics facilities that the UAE offers such as Jebel Ali Port and Dubai World Central. The investor also needs to be given an insight into the advantages of UAE brands leveraging initiatives such as ‘Make it in the UAE’ and recently unveiled ‘Operation300bn’. A brand that is associated with the UAE and Dubai, is trusted and has an advantage on the market. In terms of ease of doing business, the UAE ranks higher than any other country in the Mideast region. The country is home to two international finance centres, Dubai, is International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Financial
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MEABUSINESS
N eil Petch, Chairman & Co-founder, Virtuzone. Markets, a point of attraction for institutional investors. All the points highlighted above are crucial to investors/entrepreneurs who seeks to do business globally whilst based in the UAE or Dubai. As a company, we are building on the momentum that we already have by highlighting how the UAE is globally connected due to its central location and its airlines, Emirates and Etihad, which connects with the world’s continents. It takes time for any country to develop infrastructure that enables ease of doing business.
Business News for the MEA region
Last October, Mark Beer, former Chief Executive of the DIFC Courts joined Virtuzone as a special advisor. Virtuzone and Mark’s shared vision is to position the UAE at the heart of a borderless global economy, supporting the country’s transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a knowledge-based, technology-enabled digital economy. The collaboration aims to deliver a global, borderless jurisdiction in which companies can establish, transact and succeed internationally whilst avoiding the increasing boundaries, borders and
