Dubai Chamber Director General visits Western Australia Chamber of Commerce

The meeting, which came as a follow-up to Pearson's visit to Dubai in May, provided an opportunity to the Director General of Dubai Chamber to stress the key role of the Chamber in promoting Dubai as an international business hub and to highlight the services offered to the business community worldwide.

On his part, Pearson stressed upon the strong relationship Western Australia and the UAE enjoy and assured his Chamber's support in cementing bilateral relations between the businessmen in his country and their counterparts in Dubai. He also apprised Buamim about the functioning of his Chamber and the services offered by CCIWA.

Buamim also stressed the Chamber's interest in enhancing economic cooperation between Dubai and Western Australia by opening up new channels of communication between the two trading partners and exploring investment opportunities in both countries.

Pearson and Buamim agreed to arrange an official visit of the representatives of CCIWA to Dubai by the end of the year as there is already a plan in place for the CCIWA and Arab Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (AACCI) trade missions to visit Saudi Arabia and the UAE in November and December this year and the two officials also discussed the potential visit of an official trade delegation from Dubai to Western Australia in 2009.

There are 131 Australian companies working in Dubai and registered with Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Dubai's non-oil trade with Australia (including Free Zone) reached Dhs13,675,541,776 in 2007 with imports registering Dhs13,338,212,379 and export/re-export touching Dhs337,329,397. Dubai hosts an Australian Business Council and four Australian trade offices including a Western Australia Trade Office as the country ranked no. 14th in a list of Dubai's trade partners in 2007.

According to CCIWA sources Western Australia's business sector is diverse and dynamic, with a wide range of businesses of all sizes operating across a range of industry sectors throughout the state. Western Australia's strong economy has recently come to the forefront of economic activity across Australia. By the end of 2006-07, the WA economy produced output to the value of $128bn, and accounted for almost 13% of the national economy.

Growth in the WA economy has been primarily generated through its dominant resources sector, which was worth $38.8bn in 2006 07 and is almost two-and-a-half times bigger than what it was just three years ago and today accounts for 30% of total economic activity.

Almost two-thirds of all WA businesses are service-orientated. By 2006-07, almost one-quarter of all businesses were property and business service focused - the largest number of businesses operating in any sector of the economy. Construction businesses were the second most prominent, accounting for 18%, while retailers were also prominent, representing 11% of all businesses in the state.