Dubai has always traded on geography and reinvention. From pearl diving to one of the world’s leading hubs for trade and innovation, the engine has been connection – across goods, ideas, and capital.
DMCC sits at the intersection of those flows
For more than 20 years, we have grown alongside Dubai, becoming a strategic hub for commerce and enterprise.
Today, more than 26,000 companies from 180 countries call us home. Our district contributes over 15% of Dubai’s foreign direct investment and 7% of its GDP. From Jumeirah Lakes Towers to Uptown Dubai, our physical footprint attracts multinationals, scale-ups, and entrepreneurs in equal measure.
This growth mirrors the UAE’s wider strategy: diversify the economy, compete at the frontiers of innovation, and anchor new global trade corridors. With Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements spanning India to Indonesia, Dubai’s reach is accelerating.
Commodities: Our Bedrock
Global trade is reshaping, but fundamentals endure: goods still move markets. We built our foundations in commodities, and they remain central to our identity.
More than 1,500 companies operate within our gold and precious metals ecosystem, supported by exchanges and settlement platforms built for high-volume, high-trust trades. The Dubai Diamond Exchange – the world’s largest tender facility – connects over 1,365 companies across the precious stones value chain, from miners to polishers to dealers.
Energy is evolving, too. With more than 3,600 firms across hydrocarbons and renewables, we support a diversified energy ecosystem. In agri-commodities, our Coffee and Tea Centres handle thousands of tones annually, linking producers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with buyers in Europe and the Gulf. Newly announced honey and saffron centres will extend that reach even further.
Technology: Building the New Trade Architecture
While commodities anchor us, technology defines what’s next. The coming era of global trade will be shaped by digital transformation, and we are building the infrastructure to support it.
More than 3,400 firms form our tech ecosystem – from algorithmic traders and metaverse builders to enterprise AI labs. The DMCC Crypto Centre hosts 700+ blockchain and digital asset businesses. The Gaming Centre houses 140+ developers and esports studios. The DMCC AI Centre includes 120+ teams building applied AI for logistics, finance, and supply chains.
What links them is not sector but direction: from physical to digital, from static to programmable. Our role is to ensure these flows are built on the same trust, infrastructure, and interoperability that underpin global commodities.
Finance: Turning Trade into Capital
Trade and technology need capital to scale. Finance is the connective tissue between the two.
Nearly 1,700 companies in banking, investment, and fintech now operate within our community. The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange processes over a million
contracts annually, providing hedging and liquidity for global markets. DMCC Tradeflow registered AED 1.4 trillion in Islamic finance transactions last year, enabling Shariah- compliant, asset-backed lending at scale.
This architecture is extending into the digital realm. In partnership with Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), we are developing a framework for tokenised commodities, bringing physical assets like gold and diamonds onto blockchain rails. These pilots will test market and regulatory models for secure, tradable tokens, with the long-term goal of embedding real-world assets into institutional markets.
We are formalising what has already taken shape: a fully operationalfinancialcentrethatbringstogetherstructured capital, digital assets, trade finance, and fintech on one platform. Anchored by the DMCC Wealth Hub, a regulated clearing house, and access to Common Law courts, our aim is not to replicate other districts but to connect the flows that already move through Dubai.
The Next Decade
Our next chapter is our most ambitious. As we deepen our work across commodities, technology, and finance we will build ecosystems that anticipate the future and reinforce Dubai’s role as a trusted platform for growth. By doing so, we will consolidate our position as the world’s most interconnected business district and keep Dubai at the beating heart of global trade.
