Dubai, UAE - Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber members' exports and re-exports continue to show consistent signs of improvement for the first six months of the year with a marked increase of 13.7% compared to the same period in 2009. Their total exports and re-exports in the first two quarters of 2010 stood at AED 103.2bn according to Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber 's half yearly report.

Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber figures reveal that March registered the largest proportion in the volume of exports, amounting to AED 18.7bn while January recorded the lowest of AED 15.9bn in the first six months of the year. Meanwhile, total value of July exports of the Chamber's members posted a slight decline of 4% to a total of AED 17.2bn from AED 18bn in June which is attributed to the summer holiday season that traditionally slows down the demand but there are expectations for demand build-up for the coming Ramadan and holidays in the later part of the year.

According to the report, the number of Certificates of Origin (COs) issued by the Chamber to its members in the first half of the year registered a 7% growth touching 318,557 in comparison to the 297,677 COs issued in first half of 2009. The month of June alone saw the highest issuance of COs touching 57,306 while the month of January had 48,036 certificates of origin issued.

In the first half of the year, 5,098 new members joined Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber which is an 18.9% increase from 4,289 in the same period last year.

Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber received 71 global trade delegations comprising 511 businessmen in the first six months of the year. The meetings came as part of the Chamber's efforts in strengthening trade ties between the business community in Dubai and their counterparts from the visiting countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Austria and the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Georgia, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and the US and UK.

Opening up new business opportunities for its members and the Dubai business community was high on Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber 's agenda this year as it continued to explore new investment opportunities in a number of new and promising markets that include: Common Market for Eastern & Southern Africa (COMESA), Latin America as well as the US.

In preparation to host the COMESA Investment Forum in 2011, Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber organized the first ever COMESA workshop as part of its efforts in positioning Dubai as a promising gateway to the whole African continent. Comesa is the largest economic bloc of Africa, with 19 members and the group's market is expected to exceed 500 million consumers by 2015 as the region with its more than 389 million population and total GDP of US$ 342 billion offers high investment potential and excellent trade opportunities for Dubai businesses.

In the earlier part of the year, Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber set upon exploring the Latin American region which offers huge potential in their economic sectors including ports, construction and public work projects as well as manufacturing, aquaculture, tourism and real-estate while those countries can use Dubai as a hub for re-exports and increased trade with Asian countries.

As a first of its kind initiative to present Dubai as a potential business investment destination in the region for US businesses, Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber hosted a large group of American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) heads at the US-Dubai 2010: Executive Business Leaders Mission to Dubai from March 7 to 11. The US business leaders' mission to Dubai has paved the way for the Emirate's business community to consolidate trade ties with their US counterparts and to promote the emirate as a lucrative business destination for American businessmen.

As part of its strategic objectives of creating a favourable business environment, supporting the development of business and promoting Dubai as an international business hub, Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber launched its newest initiative of Country Focus Briefing with Chile and Switzerland to explore new markets for its members. It also launched the Services Briefings which were held at its head office and the Jebel Ali branch thus reaching out to investors in the free zones while providing participants practical account of the Chamber's services.

Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber also organized a number of periodic business networking meetings with its business groups and councils to enhance the channels of communication between the business communities representing various countries of the world. Prominent among them were the Arab Health and Gulfood networking lunches as well as two economic seminars.

HE Hamad Buamim, Director General, Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber , maintained that the outcome from the first half of the current year is very encouraging as it proves to the world that Dubai's business environment is as strong as ever and the Emirate is a viable investment destination. Backed by the exceptional performance of Dubai's export and re-export sector, Buamim informed that this particular sector is the real driving force behind Dubai's economic recovery.

Buamim further added that on its part Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber was doing everything within its means to serve the business community by enhancing their competitiveness in the global arena and has been diligently pursuing its mission of representing, supporting and protecting the interests of the business community in Dubai.

Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber added yet another feather in its cap of achievements as the organization has been honoured with three excellence awards including Distinguished Government Agency, Best Result in Employee Satisfaction and Best Result in Customer Satisfaction categories at the Dubai Government Excellence Programme 2009 award ceremony held in April. With Dubai ChamberDubai Chamber realigning its strategies and becoming better equipped to serve its members, the Award emphasised on the Chamber's institutional excellence as its customer satisfaction went up by 88% while its employee satisfaction ranking up scaled from 13th to 1st in the last three years.