Dubai regains ground as global financial hub

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The negative impact of rising Middle East tensions around Syria is only short-term for Dubai as favorable polices moved it into the spotlight of global finance and banking.

The month of September when temperatures sink and business travelers return for conferences marks the start of the economic high season in the Gulf region, with Dubai presenting news on a daily basis that the business beat is back.

On Monday, Bank of London and The Middle East said it will float share on the Nasdaq Dubai, the Middle East only international bourse by regulatory standards. The going public of the largest British Islamic bank, which said it would be around 195 million shares at an estimated listing price of 2.57 U.S. dollars, will mark the first floating of new securities at Nasdaq Dubai in more than five years.

Also on Monday, United States-based capital markets platform provider Calypso Technology said it opened an office in the DIFC, the offshore financial center of Dubai which also harbors the Nasdaq Dubai.

Calypso chief executive and chairman Charles Marston said at the four-day global financial summit Sibos that after winning big regional clients like Riyad Bank or the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) first lender Emirates NBD, opening an office in Dubai was "a natural choice".

The 35th edition of the annual Sibos in Dubai, organized by global financial transactions provider SWIFT, was the first that took place in the Middle East with 7,300 delegates attending.

The DIFC harbors 22 Middle East branches of the world's 25 biggest banks. Earlier in the month, DIFC authority chief executive Jeff H. Singer said the DIFC was no longer as a regional hub "but a global financial center which reaches out not only North Africa, but the entire Africa, Asia, Europe, the United States and Latin America."

"The UAE and Dubai are in the center of the new economic shift to the East which bridges Africa over the Middle East and through the New Silk Road with Asia," said the chairman of the UAE banking federation Abdulaziz Al-Ghurair in his key note on the last day of Sibos on Thursday.

During week, the Dubai stock market DFM also managed to erase the entire amount of losses it suffered during the last week of August when the United States threatened to bomb Syria if it does not agree to destroy its chemical weapons.

As the U.S.-Russian brokered agreement has been under way since last week, the DFM General Index gained 14.71 percent since Sept. 9.

Meanwhile, the Dubai Multi Commodities Center or DMCC said earlier on Saturday, it became the UAE's biggest free zone with over 7,300 active registrations. The DMCC has emerged as an accepted free zone for global mining firms, diamond traders and precious metals companies.

With the number of firms, the DMCC overtook the Dubai's free port zone Jebel Ali for the first time. One third of the DMCCs licensed members are from South Asia, while a third is from the Middle East.

Companies from Europe and North America make together also 33 percent of the free zone's firms.